


my feelings ran away (I didn't know how to treat them)

by Ameliapll



Series: i left my love out in the cold [1]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Canon, Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Lesbian Character, Canon Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Dysfunctional Family, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Family Drama, Female Friendship, Happy Death Day AU, Heavy Angst, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Joss Jackam Needs A Hug, Joss Jackam gets a hug, Joss Jackam redemption, Joss doesn't know Nora's XS, Lesbian Nora West-Allen, Not Really Character Death, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Female Character, Picking and choosing parts of canon, Set in between 5x10-5x20, Slow Burn, Whump, aka a more fitting character arc than 5x20 but I'm biased, lesbian Joss Jackam, onesided enemies to friends to girlfriends, some of it at least
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:09:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 42,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26521186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ameliapll/pseuds/Ameliapll
Summary: Joss Jackam wakes up in Nora West-Allen's bed, goes about her day like normal, and then gets killed by Cicada. And repeat.There's two things that stay consistent in the time loop. The first is, at the end, she gets murdered.The other thing is that she can't stay away from Nora West-Allen, no matter how hard she tries.
Relationships: Joslyn Jackam & Raya Van Zandt, Joslyn Jackam/Nora West-Allen, Mark Mardon & Joslyn Jackam, past Lia Nelson/Nora West-Allen, past Raya Van Zandt/Joslyn Jackam
Series: i left my love out in the cold [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2108583
Comments: 23
Kudos: 35





	1. Chapter 1

A phone is ringing. 

That’s what wakes Joss Jackam up. Upon further investigation, she quickly discovers that it’s _her_ phone, sitting on an unfamiliar bedside table. 

In fact, the whole room is unfamiliar. She groans, trying to sit up, but her body’s sore, her head hurts. Before she can wrap her head around that, a familiar woman peers tentatively into the room, relaxing and smiling when she sees Joss is awake. She doesn’t know why the woman looks so genuine. Last time they’d met, the woman had publicly condemned her. 

“Oh, hey, how’re you going?” Nora West asks, entirely too nicely for someone who’d outright said she didn’t trust Joss last time they locked eyes. 

Joss tries to convey _what the hell - why are you here - why are you being so nice_ merely through blinking but Nora doesn’t seem to get the message, so she has to translate. 

“Um,” she says, wincing as her voice comes out rough and her throat protests against the motion. Still, she persists. “What’re you…”

Nora must catch on, for her smile dims a little. “Um. Last night…last night, you got drunk. Like, really drunk. So I bought you here. I’ve got painkillers, if you want?” She gestures to a pill bottle on her desk.

That sounded right. Joss could sort of remember that, at least - Raya had insisted, and what Raya wanted, Raya got. She hoped the Silver Ghost was drunk enough to not know, or maybe remember, that Nora was a CSI, because if the Young Rogues found out, Joss would definitely pay. Heart leaping to her throat, she turns on her phone, bracing herself for countless texts, dramatically asking how she could betray them like this.

It didn’t look like they knew Nora’s job. The only notification on her phone is a missed call from her dad, which is weird, but whatever, she’s not going to think about it. 

Joss starts nodding in response to the question about the painkillers as soon as her brain processes it, but quickly discovers the action causes a rush of dizziness to go over her. 

“Ugh,” she groans, looking down so she doesn’t have to look at Nora’s annoyingly pretty face. Looking down means Joss can see that she’s wearing a S.T.A.R labs shirt, decidedly not the shirt she was wearing last night, and then she looks up again, frowning. 

“Where’re my clothes?”

“Oh, I folded them. Here.” Nora opens a wardrobe and grabs the jeans and shirt Joss was wearing last night, placing them on the bed. “I wouldn’t have wanted you to have your circulation cut off, or-”

Joss nods pointedly, getting up, ignoring her sore limbs, her joints shifting to new positions and the tired ache that causes. She pops the painkillers in her mouth without needing water, before taking off the S.T.A.R. Labs shirt, causing Nora to whip around with flaming cheeks, before continuing to speak. 

“I, uh, I don’t know if you remember me-”

“I remember you. You were the one who testified against me,”

Joss keeps her voice cold. She doesn’t know if it’s a trap - she _is_ wanted, after all, and anyway, why would Nora be so nice given what happened last time? 

“Right.” As if she’s thinking out loud, Nora murmurs soft enough that even in the silent room, it’s still slightly hard to hear her, “Feels like that happened years ago,”

Joss’s hackles rise and she hears herself snapping, “Funny. For me, it was like it happened last week.”

She gathers her hair from the back of her shirt and pulls it out before regarding Nora coolly.

“If you _do_ tell anyone about last night, I’ll kill you. Got it?”

She has to wonder about the pang of regret she gets when Nora’s face falls as she takes her lower lip into her mouth and nods in agreement. 

Whatever, Nora will get over it. It’s not like Joss is ever going see her again, and anyway, it’s better than the Young Rogues finding out what Nora’s career of choice is - she knows the other woman is smart enough to not announce to a group of criminals that she’s police. 

“Good,” she says, and walks out with no statement of farewell. 

\-----

Apparently Team Flash can track her weather staff and Spencer’s phone and she knows it’s only a matter of time before Raya’s fob gets hit, too. 

She knows this because Raya made her use her staff and timed how long it took XS to show up in a burst of purple and gold lightning. 

This means that the weather staff is locked away until heists or until Raya says otherwise. 

Which is fine. Joss really doesn’t want The Flash breathing down her neck at all times. 

She knows for certain that she doesn’t want to think about XS breathing down her neck.

The only problem with not having her weather staff is that she’s late for a meeting with Raya. (Read: coffee). And that inevitably means Raya’s going to say something. Still, it won’t be so bad.

After all, Raya’s the only person who somewhat puts up with her. 

Spencer and Brie find her outbursts annoying.

Joss is pretty sure Raya just finds them amusing. 

“Well, look who finally showed up,”

“I had to walk here,” she says flatly. “Because you won’t let me teleport,”

Raya shrugs. By the time Joss sits down, she’s smirking knowingly.

“Did you _really_ think you could keep this a secret from me?”

“Keep what a secret from you?”

She really has no idea what Raya’s talking about. The other woman sighs, rolling her eyes.

“Before I hired you, I checked your file.”

Wait. That means she knows what day it is - shit.

“Great. Don’t tell anyone it’s my birthday,”

“Too late for that, hon. That was why I needed to talk to you. We’re planning the jewellery heist tonight.”

She thinks about saying something, but realises that it would be pointless. She nods, instead.

“Good,” Raya says, straightening in her chair. She’s about to say something when Joss’s phone rings. Glancing at the ID, Joss feels the wind get knocked out of her.

**Mark.**

For a second, she wants to press accept, but then reality sinks in and she presses decline. For him to ring once might’ve been a coincidence, but twice…

_No. Stop. He left. And I’m better off for it._

She’s been through enough disappointment with her family to ever contemplate ending the estrangement between her and her parents. 

“Everything okay?”

“Wrong number,” Joss says tensely, “relay the plan for me?”

\----

The plan is supposed to be simple. Joss is sure it’ll fail. Spencer is hypnotising security to stop recording the stores; to give the Young Rogues security detail. And when Spencer gives Raya the signal, they’ll go. 

Joss sighs, watching Raya walk to the front of the line. 

“Hey, Joss?” 

“What, are you stalking me now?” she asks, raising an eyebrow. Nora West snorts. 

“Yeah, you wish. Listen, I didn’t approach you because I wanted to engage in bitchy banter. You left your bracelet in my room,”

Nora reaches into her jacket pocket and pulls out a gold charm bracelet. 

Joss feels a lump swell in her throat. 

_How could I have missed that?_ Quickly, she snatches the bracelet from Nora and, with a shaking hand, clasps it onto her right wrist without thanks. 

Nora scoffs, rolling her eyes. “God, that is so _like_ you. And to think I thought you...you know what, whatever,” 

She turns on her heel and storms away. 

Joss sighs, playing with her bracelet. Regret twists up her insides, but she’s sure it’s not reflected on her face. She has had years with hiding her emotions, after all. 

“Who was that?” Raya asks, coming back. Her eyes have narrowed in on Nora’s back. “And why does she look familiar?”

“From last night?” Joss asks, shrugging. “Name’s Nora,”

Raya shakes her head. “No, from before. I don’t know, she just reminds me of someone,”

She frowns. “Actually, don’t you think she looks a bit like XS?”

“I mean, _yeah,_ a bit, but don’t you think XS would be too busy to go to Jitters? Look, she hates me, and I have more important things to do than worry about her,”

“Fair. Forget about her,” Raya gestures encouragingly. “Focus on crime, on the Young Rogues,”

“I always do,” Joss nods toward the takeaway cups, precariously balanced in one leather clad arm. “One of those better be for Spencer. I _don’t_ want to have to deal with her pouting later. You know she only survives on Jitters,”

A note of judgement creeps into her voice, and Raya scoffs, gently bumping her. 

“Joss, you are the _last_ person to judge _other_ people’s health,”

Well.

Joss exactly can’t say a lot to counter that particular point, so she just glares, hoping her ire will be enough to silence Raya.

It isn’t. 

Raya smirks, the expression somehow saying everything to counter Joss’s wordless argument, and as always, the Weather Witch relents.

\----

As normal, the Young Rogues base casts an aqua light on everyone. Joss is squeezed in between one couch arm and Brie, who at the very least likes her a tad more than Spencer. 

While Raya talks, Joss feels an excited tremor go through her. _This_ is why she agreed to Raya’s terms- the chance to make her own chosen family that she knew wouldn’t leave her. And despite the fact that she had tumultuous feelings regarding the Young Rogues- what sane person looked at a woman who had brutally murdered her own father and decided that she would be a good partner in crime?- she wouldn’t change a thing. 

Even if they didn’t like her much, at least they didn’t hate her as much as her own parents. A low bar, but the Young Rogues clear it. 

Plus, if she has to be a criminal, she’d rather do it as _Joss Jackam_ , not as the _Weather Wizard’s kid,_ as Brie had so politely put it when they met _._

He calls her again. 

“What do you _want_?” Joss mutters under her breath, slamming her fingernail on decline call. If he _really_ wants to talk to her, he can leave a message. 

She _won’t_ be led on. 

No matter how much the softest and most fragile part of her heart is begging her to give him another second chance. 

Shaking her head, she powers her phone off, running a hand through her hair. It’s better this way, she tries to convince herself. After all, every time she tries to give someone a chance, somehow she’s always the one who gets hurt. 

It was better to not trust anyone, ever. 

“Stop bumping me,” Brie mutters. Joss glares at her.

Her mind wanders to XS. She has a _feeling,_ a sense of nagging at her conscience, but she can’t quite work out who the speedster is. Maybe it was because XS vibrated her face the last time Joss had been face to face with her, but she got the sense that she knew the hero. 

Maybe if the speedster had talked to Joss before Raya, had given the whole spiel about second chances that she did right after the Weather Witch has accepted her Young Rogues membership...maybe Joss wouldn’t be going down the same path she has the awful feeling that her father went down. 

_No,_ she tells herself firmly, _it’s better to have a few people in the dark than be alone in the light._ After all, XS had looked at her with the same expression Nora had, back at her trial. Sheer hatred. And why wouldn’t they?

Joss is the Weather Witch, the criminal daughter of a criminal father, worse than the scum of the Earth. And just because she sometimes wished she had stayed clean, it wouldn’t change. It was her destiny, she’s known it since her thirteenth birthday, maybe even before, and she’s not going to apologise for who she is-

“Joss, you listening?”

She snaps back to Raya, who’s tilting her head slightly patronisingly. 

“You know I am.”

_And even if I wasn’t, I know it_ already _because you told me,_ she wants to add in irritation but doesn’t. 

She knows how that particular scene would go- not well for her. 

“Okay then.”

Joss can hear Spencer stifle a scoff and scowls furiously. 

She’s _fine._

_There’s nothing wrong with her._

\------

She’s five steps up to her floor in her apartment- the elevator’s broken - when the lights flick out in a blackout. She breathes in deeply but otherwise doesn’t react. 

This had, unfortunately, happened a lot. Speedsters fight often with no regard for anyone else. She hasn’t bothered to replace the glass in one of her windows because she knows that it’ll just shatter again next time they race by. Still, Joss stays still, fingers grappling for the rail. It would be embarrassing to break her neck because she was stubborn enough to want to get to her room in a blackout.

The lights come back on after a few moments, she needs to squeeze her eyes tight against the sudden onslaught of fluorescent brightness. She _does_ find it funny how she can’t hear the gust of wind that inevitably follows a speedster, but she figures it must be an anomaly. 

Heart racing and mouth drying for reasons she doesn’t know yet, Joss slowly ascends the stairs again. It’s late, so there’s not many people here. Not that she would interact with them, anyway, but still. She tucks her hands into her (read: Raya’s) hoodie pockets, suddenly feeling the cold. 

Even if the electricity has turned back on, the heaters didn’t, which was _just perfect._ She was so caught up with her own thoughts that she didn’t notice the dagger, orange markings on it, until it was too late, and a searing pain overwhelms her, starting with her side, and -

And too quickly, everything goes black. 


	2. 2

Joss shoots upright in bed, hand flying to her side, panting breath, heart racing. 

She has to convince herself that she’s okay multiple times before her breathing normalizes. She can’t be breathing if she’s dead, after all. Of course, what happened...before had to be a dream. What other explanation could there be? 

And then her phone rings. She jumps slightly, and with shaking fingers, picks it up.

**_Mark._ **

No. 

No, that can’t be right. 

She presses decline. Well, she attempts to. It takes a couple of tries because her fingers are so shaky. 

And then she recognizes the room she’s in, and she notices what day her phone is telling her it is, and her vision blurs. 

It’s the same as yesterday. 

She’s in Nora’s room, and- 

Joss looks down and makes a strangled noise when her suspicions are confirmed. 

She’s wearing the damn S.T.A.R lab's shirt. 

“Oh, hey, how’re you going?”

Her head snaps up at the sound of Nora West’s voice. 

“...Nora?”

The CSI beams, nodding. 

“I wasn’t sure you’d remember me. You got drunk last night, like, really drunk. So I brought you here. I’ve got painkillers if you want?”

Joss frowns. It’s...what’s  _ happening?  _ “Can you just get my clothes out, from in...there?” she snaps, gesturing to the closet. 

“Yeah,” Nora agrees, sounding slightly disappointed. She opens the closet before frowning herself, poking her head around the open door. 

“How did you know….”

“Never mind,” Joss shakes her head, folding her arms around herself and tightening her grip to shield herself from the cold. 

Nora gives her an odd look before putting her clothes out on the bed. 

“Here,” she says gently and immediately, Joss bristles. It’s too gentle like the CSI  _ pities  _ her. “Painkillers,”

Nora grabs a bottle from her desk and shakes two into her palm before handing them to Joss. 

“Thanks,” she mutters distractedly, before swallowing them and sliding into her jeans. The same ones she wore in her dream. 

A coincidence. She’s sure of it. Besides she wears these jeans all the time, it’s not  _ unusual.  _

After pulling her hair out from the back of her shirt, Joss sighs.

“You can’t tell anyone what happened last night,” she says flatly. “Or I’ll k-“

_ The dagger she noticed too late- the burning in her side that spreads to the rest of her body _

Threatening to kill someone was not as much fun when she had a realistic dream about her own murder. 

“Or I’ll tell Raya who you really are,” she finishes, somewhat lamely. It doesn’t warrant Nora’s betrayed, disappointed look. 

“So you know who I am,” she says softly, hurt, “and you’re threatening to  _ expose  _ me. You know, my dad said not to trust the villains of this city but I thought you were the exception,”

“Yeah, well,” Joss says, and she doesn’t mean for her voice to be so vulnerable. “You can’t see the good in someone with no good left inside them,”

She mockingly blows Nora a kiss and leaves.

At least she feels more like herself.

\----

“Well, look who finally showed up,”

Joss flinches. It was exactly the same drawl as was used in her nightmare.

“You okay?” Raya’s tone is still amused, but it wavers.

“Never better, why?” Joss hears herself saying, voice defensive and prickly. 

Raya’s eyes gleam with suspicion. 

“You look like crap,  _ and _ you’re lying to me,”

“No, I’m not!”

“Joss, you cannot lie for shit. And I say that with love,”

Joss scoffs with disbelief at the latter half of the sentence.

“My dad called. And I’m having the weirdest sense of deja vu,” she says. She doesn’t elaborate on how weird the deja vu is. Raya would think she was crazy. What, some similarities between today and her dream meant that someone would stab her? She’s being ridiculous. 

“Wait, your  _ dad _ ? Why?”

“Hell if I know. Maybe me trying to kill him made something click in his head,” Joss shrugs. “Does it matter? I’m not gonna pick up. That ship’s sailed, a  _ long _ time ago,”

Raya nods, eyes still flickering with doubt. 

“Anyway, what did you need?”

“We’re planning the jewelry heist tonight.” 

“Didn’t we do that yesterday?” Joss blurts. 

“No...I didn’t see you yesterday,” Raya shoots her a confused look. “You know that,”

“Sure. Of course,” she forces a smile. “I haven’t had caffeine yet, you know how I get,”

“Uh-huh. Well, I guess I’ll buy you a coffee, only ‘cause it’s your birthday and I don’t have enough patience for you to have another argument with Spencer,”

“You’re the best,”

“I know,”

Joss smiles, slightly relaxing as a difference between her dream and reality becomes apparent. 

Everything is going to be okay. She’s not gonna get stabbed.

“Hey, Joss?”

Her smile fades when another part of her dream breaks her thoughts.

“Nora,” she says flatly. “What do you want?”

“Relax,” Nora says just as flatly. “I’m not here to talk about last night. You left something in my room,”

Joss’s stomach plummets when Nora reaches into-  _ god,  _ how did she  _ know  _ what Nora’s denim jacket looked like in her dream?- her pocket and pulls out her charm bracelet.

“No,” she says under her breath. “No, this isn’t  _ happening _ ,”

She can barely hear Nora’s concerned question over the buzzing in her ears. Slowly, she reaches out and takes the bracelet. It’s unnaturally cold, and she realizes with a start that her hands are sweating profusely. 

Joss almost clasps it around her right wrist and then changes her mind, switching it to her left. Another difference. She is  _ not  _ going to get stabbed.

Once she clasps it on, she can breathe again, even if it’s only slightly. 

“You okay?” Nora asks, soft and gentle in a way Joss is unused to. 

She swallows a painful lump, eyes sliding to where Raya’s just about to turn. 

“Fine,” she says, and it’s quieter than she wants, not quite pushing Nora away. “I’m fine,”

“Okay, well. See you, I guess,”

“Yeah, I guess,” Joss echoes. It feels a little weak, but Nora smiles, and suddenly she herself feels the corners of her mouth twitching up. Nora’s smile is contagiously bright, that’s all it was. 

That’s all it had to be. 

“Bye,” she hears herself saying, so soft she’s not even sure Nora can hear her. 

The other woman’s eyes soften and she nods, before leaving. She doesn’t know how much time has passed before Raya comes up behind her. 

“Who was that?” she asks, tone deceptively casual.

“No one,” says Joss, and then, “Nora,”

“Nora, huh? She looks a little like XS, actually,”

“XS?” she asks, turning around. 

“Yeah, you know. Speedster, purple and gold lightning, your hero crush?”

“I don’t have a crush on XS,”

“Of course not,” Raya says, rolling her eyes. “That would be ridiculous,”

“Shut up,”

Nudging Raya, Joss almost forgets what happened just before she woke up. 

Almost.

And then, the sound of breaking news interrupts the music video playing on the television in the corner, and she turns to look at it.

“Since last night, inside sources from the CCPD report that Cicada killed two more metahumans last night…”

The reporter continues, but Joss’s mouth goes dry at the image of the serial killer that pops up.

Specifically, the serial killer's knife.

_ -she didn’t notice the dagger, orange markings on it until it was too late, and a searing pain overwhelms her-  _

“Joss?  _ Joss _ ,”

She snaps back to attention.

“You still with me?” 

Joss takes one more look at Cicada on the television, before turning back to Raya, flashing a fake grin.

“Always,”

And if her voice breaks, both of them pretend they can’t hear it.

_ \------- _

Raya’s plan is exactly the same as in her dream.

Joss can’t believe she’s had to hear this three times.

Her phone lights up with an incoming call-  **_Mark._ **

“You gonna get that?” Raya asks, perturbed that someone’s interrupted her scheming. 

“No. It’s not important,” Joss replies, declining the call before slipping it back into her pocket.

Raya eyes her suspiciously for a moment before shrugging it off. 

“Alright. So here’s where we’re gonna hit…”

Joss tunes her out. 

She’s heard the plan, after all. Twice. 

In a dream which is looking more and more likely to be a reality, which is crazy. 

Because if it  _ was  _ real, then...then she really died.

She had really gotten  _ murdered. _

_ You’re being ridiculous,  _ she tells herself,  _ of course, you weren’t freaking murdered. It was just a dream.  _

Still, she’s unnerved by the sheer amounts of similarities in between her dream and today. 

She draws her knees up to her chest automatically, creating a small, safe place for herself.

“Stop bumping me,” Brie hisses and Joss glares.

“Eat shit, Larvan,” she mutters. Brie glares at her, opens her mouth, and-

“I’m sorry,” Raya says, deliberately slowly and condescendingly, “but are we planning a heist or are we not?”

Joss waits until Brie grumbles out an apology first before nodding herself. 

At least she wasn’t the first to give in. 

——-

Joss turns the door to her apartment reluctantly. 

She isn’t sure what’s awaiting her, she isn’t sure if she wants to know. 

_ Oh, you mean like your room? C’mon, Joss, get a grip.  _

She’s not sure why she’s so paranoid. 

Joss takes one foot up the first of the stairs, and then fully steps onto it, tentative. By the time she’s slowly ascended three stairs, the lights go off. 

“No way in Hell,” she mutters, turning back around, and launching down the steps. She hadn’t been there for very long, and yet someone had bolted the door shut from the outside without her noticing. 

Which was fine. 

Okay, no it wasn’t. Joss is scared  _ shitless,  _ but the  _ other  _ exit is right down the hall. This is  _ fine.  _ It had been a warm day, and metal swells when it’s hot. It was probably just that. 

(Except hadn’t she shivered on the way home because it was cool?)

She walks down the hall, suppressing the urge to run, and yanks the door handle down. 

It’s stuck fast. 

And at that moment, Joss has a sudden burst of ice-cold clarity that she’s going to die again. 

She struggles with the handle, despite knowing it’s fruitless, before slumping down in defeat. 

She doesn’t know what it is that makes her turn around, but when she does, she comes face to face with Cicada. 

“Shit,” she says out loud, her voice shaky and scared. “Hey, no, no, don’t you kill metals? I’m not a meta, I’m a regular human. Look at the video of my trial, Nora West confirmed it,”

“And yet,” he says, and his voice makes shivers go down her spine and she slowly backs off, “XS knows enough about you to know what sort of person you are,”

_ “Joss, this isn’t who you are,” _

Joss is startled enough to pause. Sure, XS had given her that heartfelt speech, but it’s not like they’re friends all of a sudden. They are, after all, on opposite sides of the law. 

It gives Cicada enough time to swing his dagger down and forward, and she shrieks, slamming her elbow into his gut and swerving away. He grunts, but otherwise doesn’t seem to be affected too badly. 

She runs or at least tries to, but he’s got a hold of her braid, and no matter how hard she claws at his hand- she can see it bleed and feels a visceral triumph under the overwhelming terror- he doesn’t let go, until he uses it to slam her head, hard, against the door. It slightly bounces, and she hisses. Trying to kill her or no, she is not going to let this  _ dick  _ see her cry. 

Joss tries to struggle, to hit and kick and punch or  _ anything,  _ but he doesn’t budge, and she squeezes her eyes shut when the orange markings get closer as Cicada swings the dagger at her heart. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, @tardisfanunited8 for beta-ing my work.


	3. 3

Joss shoots upright, gasping, before realising where she is. 

“No, _no_ …”

Nora West’s room. She blindly gropes around for her phone- same place as the past two days except, _no,_ it wasn’t because her phone is _telling_ her that it’s _the same day._

She lets out a little cry when her phone suddenly changes screen, and her dad is calling. She drops it on the bed, flinging herself up. 

“Oh, hey, you’re up,” Nora greets, somewhat surprised. 

“This is a _nightmare_ ,” Joss flings her head into her hands and screams, frustrated and terrified. In front of her, Nora lets out a little scoff, pitched with indignation.

“I’m sorry? You’re the one who _attacked_ an airport with _lightning,_ you’re not my particular choice of _company-_ “

Joss tunes Nora’s offended tirade out as she flings open the closet. Just as she suspected, her clothes are in there. After wriggling into her jeans and putting her last free arm through her shirt sleeve, she notices Nora’s stopped talking. She looks like she’s noticed how scared Joss is, and is concerned.

“There’s pain killers if you want them,” the CSI offers, more gently. Joss looks past her to the desk and swallows hard. 

They’re there again, like the last day and the day before that. It’s too much, it’s overwhelming. 

She needs to get out of there. 

Joss shoves her shoes on, shoves past Nora, and runs. 

——

“Well look who finally showed up,”

Joss flinches. 

“What’s up?”

Despite the lightness of Raya’s tone, her words were weighed down by concern. 

Still, Joss doesn’t say anything. Her tongue is leaden, her hands twitch but apart from that stay motionless. 

“ _Joss._ Are you okay?”

“I think I’m losing my mind, Raya,” she eventually says, her voice frightened, yet heavy with dread. 

“Talk to me,” Raya says immediately. 

“Okay, so, I wake up in Nora’s room, come here to see you, Nora practically accosts me, we go to home base and then I go home except Cicada _kills_ me and then I repeat the day all over again. I thought it was a dream, but…”

Tears burn at Joss’s eyes but she refuses to let them fall. Crying is for the weak, and if there’s one thing Joslyn Jackam isn’t, it’s weak. 

“Joss,” Raya says cautiously, “is this...Nora the reason you’re so upset?”

“No, it’s because I keep _getting murdered!”_ she replies, frustrated. 

“I might not have lived in Central City for very long, but Joss, c’mon, even with all the city’s weirdness, no one’s lived through the same day to tell the tale, let alone twice,”

Joss slides her hands over her face, beneath her hair, and sighs. 

“Hey, you stay here. I’ll get us coffee, and then we can talk about...it,”

“What’s the point? You clearly don’t believe me,”

“I’m not saying that. I need proof, though,” Raya hesitantly pats her on the shoulder. “I’m gonna get coffee for us.”

Joss nods into her hands. 

After a minute of silence, she can feel someone watching her, hear someone shuffle their feet. 

“Nora,” she deadpans, bringing her face up from her hands. The bright lights hurt her eyes, and she winces before focussing on Nora, who looks slightly surprised but overall, concerned. 

“Hey Joss,”

“Where is it?” Joss asks, holding her hand out expectantly, “my bracelet, I mean,”

She winces at the harsh tone she uses. Not for the first time, she wishes she could have a slightly kinder voice. 

“Oh,” Nora says, slightly disappointed. “Yeah, here,” 

She reaches into her pocket and pulls out the gold charm bracelet.

Joss nods, silently thanking the woman, as she takes it from her, clasping it around her wrist. 

As always, it weighs her down comfortably, bringing her back to earth, and she breathes out. 

“Are you okay?” Nora asks quietly, “you kind of ran off this morning,”

There’s no ‘kind of’ about it, but Joss appreciates the sugar coating. It makes her actions look a little less desperate, a little less pathetic. 

“I think so,”

The obviousness of the lie causes her to wince, watching as Nora’s eyes widen in realisation. Surprisingly, she doesn’t call Joss out on the lie and just nods with a little smile. 

“See you,”

“Bye,”

Joss’s heart beats a little faster as Nora stops and looks back at her from where she’s about to sit down with what seems to be Iris West-Allen, her eyes shining with something unidentifiable. 

It doesn’t look quite like hatred, though.

It doesn’t look like hatred at all. 

“Who was that?” Raya asks, coming up behind Joss. 

“Nora,” she says quietly but not _nastily._ It was soft, like how she used to talk, back before she had to put walls up to protect the walls guarding her heart. “Nora West,”

“Nora, who you were telling me about?”

“Yeah,” 

“Huh,” 

Joss turns. Raya’s eyes are laser focussed on Nora’s back, and she’s not smiling but not quite frowning.

“She’s...cute, I guess,” the Silver Ghost muses, generous with her words as ever. “Are you _sure_ she’s not why you’re upset?”

All the light softness that made Joss temporarily forget about being murdered and whatnot comes crashing down, like a tsunami of debris falling from the sky as a purple lightning bolt hit a satellite. 

“I told you,” she mutters, folding her arms, letting her fingers curl against the area just above her elbow, “I keep getting _killed_ ,”

Raya doesn’t say anything for a while.

“You should go home, Joss. I’ll tell you the plan tomorrow, okay?”

She’s looking at Joss with concern, sympathy. The same way she had looked at her the night they met, when Joss had told her she wanted to turn herself in. 

Now, apparently, it’s because Raya thinks she’s crazy. 

Joss opens her mouth to protest before realising that this would be the biggest change from the last couple of days...not days. She doesn’t know what to call them yet. Maybe mistakes.

But if she goes now...she might beat Cicada there and be able to come up with something to, you know, stop herself from being murdered.

“Actually, yeah. I’m not...I’m not feeling so well,”

She sways slightly. Not enough to fall, or make Raya seriously worry, but enough to demonstrate she’s not feeling well, before walking to the door.

“Oh, and Joss?”

She turns. Raya juts out a hip, raises an eyebrow.

“Next time, maybe switch to _water_ , hon,”

“Noted,” Joss says dryly, and then smirks at Raya’s overly sweet, not at all real smile.

Her eyes flick just briefly to Nora West before she leaves.

\--

So, okay, she probably can’t fight Cicada off, given that she doesn’t have her weather staff, and since The Flash, XS and their band of heroes can’t fight him, she’s willing to bet that she can’t. 

Which leaves her with one option. Use her brains. 

Joss hadn’t run into him, which means he’s not here yet. What she needs to think about is staying alive. 

She tilts her head as she thinks about it. And then it hits her. 

If he’s not here, she’ll barricade herself in her room before he can come. Of course, she can’t do anything about the window in her bathroom, the one with the shattered glass (thanks, _Flash_ ), but she figures she’s not exactly on the ground floor and he’s too large to fit in the window. But any accessible entrances…she jumps up, looking between the possible ways to break in. She thinks she has enough blockage to hold him off. She tightens her ponytail and braces herself before starting to move her furniture. A few hours later, she’s done.

“Let’s see you try ‘nd kill me now, asshole,” Joss mutters, surveying her work. Her dresser is shoved in front of the windows; her desk is flipped on its side and shoved in front of her door. 

Sighing, she sits down on her bed, powering on her phone. To her surprise, her dad’s left a voicemail. Had he left a voicemail the last two times and she had just been too busy getting murdered to listen?

She presses play, her breath caught in her throat, her hands trembling as they hold the phone in a death grip.

_“Joss, hone- Joss. I know I must be the last person you want to hear-”_

“Don’t kiss your own ass. _Second_ last,” she mutters.

Cicada, after all, is a strong contender for The Person She Hates Most.

_“- right now. But what I have to tell you is important. Cicada’s active again, and this time, I’m sca- worried that he’ll come after you. You’re not a meta, but you’re my daughter, and...and I’m a meta, and now he knows that, and...look, just be careful, for once. Um, and...happy birthday, Josl- Joss,”_

The voicemail clicks off at that point, but Joss holds the phone for a while longer. 

Apart from how he stated the obvious about Cicada, she’d wanted a call like that since she was younger, for more than two decades. 

She folds her lips in, allowing herself one moment of want before snapping herself out of it. She is not going to be open and soft for people to shoot spears into. 

And her father had, even without trying, had the best aim. The target was her heart, and he got a bullseye every time it bled.

The building door creaks as it opens, and Joss quickly shoves her angst-ridden thoughts down for a rainy day, and grabs a pair of scissors. They’re sharp enough to cause serious injury, thanks to the teenager at the checkout of the drugstore either not recognising her or not realising that you shouldn’t give weapons to wanted criminals who have been charged with murder.

She imagines that it’s likely the former, but thoughts of drugstores shatter when heavy, booted footsteps come up the stairs- _the element of surprise._

Or, at least, it would be had Joss not feigned a hangover.

Huh.

So there was something good about these looped days- she could get drunk but by the third day, any symptoms of a hangover would be gone. 

Joss knows, from the last two loops, that she would have entered around now, and braces herself for the serial killer's wrath when he found that wouldn’t be the case this time.

After 20 minutes, Cicada snarls, his distorted voice terrifyingly angry. 

She tenses, despite knowing she’s safe. 

“You said she’d be here!” he growls. Joss startles and then realises he’s talking into a phone. She doesn’t move, thoughts racing through her head like the planets are rotating. She tries to hold onto even one of them before she gets dizzy, but the one that sticks in her consciousness is one that she didn’t want to have.

Someone...someone had _told_ Cicada to kill her? But _why_? Who? 

She nearly cries out a moment later when he attempts to forcefully open the door. 

It doesn’t go very far, thanks to the desk, and he appears to be even more frustrated.

She covers her mouth, trying not to make a sound for the next fifty minutes, her blood pumping as adrenaline rushes through her. Eventually though, he walks out, slamming the door behind him, hard enough to cause her to jump. 

And then a burble of laughter makes its way up Joss’s throat and escapes her mouth. 

She did it. She actually did it. 

She beat him at his own game. 

Carefully setting the scissors back, she feels the adrenaline that flooded her body even just a moment prior seep away, leaving nothing but the tired sense that she won, that she’s alive and not murdered, which is better than the last two loops. 

She lies down fully, her eyelids fluttering shut. And eventually, she sleeps fully, wondering what a tomorrow would look like. 

Joss doesn’t know how long it’s been when she fuzzily opens her eyes. There’s a multitude of multicoloured stars in her vision, red and green and purple and orange. She tries to take a breath, but it catches in the back of her throat before it can reach her mouth fully.

And then more of her senses come back to her and she feels the warm hands settled on her throat, squeezing. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please comment below with any feedback/what you think! Updates will be every two weeks at this time. Once again, thank you to @tardisfanunited8 for beta-ing this chapter.


	4. 4

Joss gasps as she wakes up and then immediately starts coughing, choking for air. 

Turns out, choking was an unpleasant way to die. She wasn’t planning on it happening again any time soon. 

“Joss!” 

Warm hands grip at her shoulders, and after a while, her vision clears and all she sees is Nora, concern gleaming in warm brown eyes. 

“Hey. Joss. Are you okay?”

She nods shakily. Nora doesn’t let go for a few moments. 

“Okay. Okay. Do you want some water?”

“Why are you helping me?” Joss whispers. Her voice comes out rasping. 

“Because everyone deserves some help. And I like you, Joss, I wouldn’t want you to get hurt,”

_I wouldn’t want you to get hurt._

“You work for the police,” she says, remembering. 

Nora nods. Joss wets her mouth, eyes darting across the other woman’s face. 

“Someone is going to kill me tonight,” she says, forcing herself to stay calm, to say it like she’s recapping the movie she watched a week ago, and watches as Nora’s eyes widen. “And I think I need your help,”

“I’m listening,”

—-

Nora, it turns out, is an excellent listener. And near scarily intense with her belief in Joss. Even though it’s happened to her- god, she’s _died_ three times- it still sounds insane. But Nora readily believes her without question. 

_Welcome to Central City, where if it’s a normal day, something’s got to be off._

“Is that...it?”

“Yeah. I think so,”

Nora breathes out. “Okay so, that’s a...lot.”

Joss can’t help but laugh slightly. “Gets even more _a lot_ when you’re the one living it,”

“The thing I can’t work out is why Cicada’s murdering you. You’re not a meta, he only kills metas,”

“Yeah, but my dad’s a meta. Probably the most infamous meta, and then there’s XS. I think he’s killing me ‘cause he thinks I’ll mean something to them,”

“XS?” Nora repeats, voice a touch higher than her usual pitch.

“Whether he heard the speech she gave me, whether someone gave him an audio recording, but she works with The Flash, right? If Cicada kills me, then it might take three powerful metas out,”

She shrugs, looking down. “Just my theory,”

“Hey. Joss, we’re gonna get through this, okay? _You’re_ gonna live,” Nora says without any question for debate. 

She places her hand over Joss’s, who looks back up. The gesture is warm, comforting. 

“Why are you so nice to me?”

Nora shrugs. “Because everyone deserves a second chance. And besides, last time I saw you, you wanted to pay for what you did. You’re not a bad person, Joss,”

Joss looks down to where Nora’s fingers are loosely gripping her own. She smiles slightly. 

“So who do you think would want to have Cicada kill you?”

“I’ve got a very killable personality, so really, a lot of people. If one of my father’s rabid fans thought he hated me and they could get in his favour by having me killed, it could be one of them. Or it could be one of my father’s enemies who think that he cares about me and having me killed would get to him. Or it could be an aspiring serial criminal. Raya’s not exactly low-key, you know. And the Young Rogues are on their way to becoming one of the biggest criminal groups in Central City. It could even be the owner of that hummer.”

Nora’s eyes are wide by the time she’s finished.

“Well, nobody’s perfect,” Joss finishes, a tad embarrassed and yet, a spark of triumph goes through her when the other woman almost smiles. 

“That’s not funny,”

“I thought it was,”

“Of course you did,”

Nora says it softly, almost fondly. Joss finds herself smiling before frowning, as her thoughts from the past loop return to her. 

“But if I’m being honest with myself, there’s only three people it could be. Spencer Young, Brie Larvan and...and Raya van Zandt. The Young Rogues. The only people who would know when the Young Rogues meeting ends,”

“Oh. Joss, I’m _sorry_ ,”

Nora’s face has dropped. Joss fumbles to give a little white lie. 

“‘Sokay. Look, what would you do? I’m not such a big fan of dying all the time,”

“Well, I mean, I have an idea but you’re going to hate it,”

Nora grins sheepishly, and Joss raises an eyebrow. 

“What?”

“I mean, you have unlimited life, right? Why not just...work out who sicced Cicada on you?”

“No,” Joss says. “ _No._ Look, while I do have unlimited lives, I don’t like dying all the time. It’s _scary_ and it hurts,”

Her throat swells. She hates showing weakness in front of people, least of all Nora West. But her eyes sting and her lip wobbles regardless. 

“Okay. Okay, let’s get back to that. Why today?”

“What’d you mean?” Joss asks. 

“I mean, why choose to kill you today? Of all days?”

Joss squirms. 

“Today may possibly be my birthday, maybe,”

“It’s your birthday?” Nora looks horrified. “And you’re getting _killed_?”

“Yeah well, my birthday’s have all sucked so far, but I think this tops all of it,”

Nora’s silent for a minute. “C’mon. Let’s go out and you can tell me all about your birthdays, but maybe get dressed first,”

Joss nods before remembering. “ _Not_ Jitters, though,”

If Raya saw them, she’d never hear the end of it. Nora makes a face, possibly realising the same thing. _Or,_ Joss thinks, remembering how she saw Nora and Iris West-Allen, _maybe she has a Raya of her own._

———

Joss has on her jeans and shoes, but keeps the S.T.A.R. Labs shirt on. 

It’s soft and makes her feel safe. Nora’s eyes sparkle when she sees. 

She doesn’t tell Nora that, when she stood up, a sharp pain coursed through her body, nearly making her fall. 

She’s sure it’s a one-off. 

“So, Joss Jackam, how have your birthdays sucked, so far?” Nora asks now, at a cafe Joss’s never been to. 

The Weather Witch subtly declines Raya’s call under the table. 

“Well, my father left my mom in the maternity ward, giving birth to me. When I turned thirteen, I ran from home. Nineteenth birthday, I got fired from my job as a meteorologist. Two weeks after my twenty third birthday, I went on trial. Twenty fourth, I’m getting murdered,”

“...I’m sorry,” Nora says. It’s not pitying, but rather compassionate. “You don’t deserve any of that. Well, apart from maybe your trial.”

“You just can’t let that go, can you?”

“Says the one who threw a truck on her dad for abandoning her,”

Oh, so she’s a comedian, now? 

Her lips twitch up at the edges, anyway. 

Nora’s eyes are warm and it makes her feel a warm tingle in the pit of her belly. 

“You know, I never did tell you,” she says without even thinking about it. 

“Tell me what?”

“It was your testimony at my trial that convinced me to turn myself in,”

“I shouldn’t have said it...like that. I was going through a lot, I still am, but I took it out on the wrong person. And I’m sorry,”

Joss nods. While Nora’s words had hurt, it was the other woman’s passion for keeping the residents of Central City safe that had inspired the Weather Witch. 

“Yeah well, I needed a bit of tough love. And I was gonna turn to the right path. But then Raya happened,”

“Still,” Nora concedes. “I _do_ trust you now, and I can see what really happened. You just wanted to hurt one person, not everyone at that airport. And truth be told, I understand why you killed your dad, I always did,”

“ _Tried_ to kill,” Joss corrects. “But...thank you,”

Nora nods understandingly. “Okay. What happens if you repeat the day again?”

“I’m not following.”

“Worst case scenario, you die, and wake up again and have to convince me. How?”

Joss doesn’t want to say what the real ‘worst case scenario’ is, doesn’t even want to think it. It creeps into her head anyway. _What if I die and the day doesn’t loop?_

After all, they had no proof that she had infinite loops yet.

“Give me a minute,” she says when she feels Nora’s eyes on her, expectant but not pushing. 

“Alright. Oh!” Nora reaches into her pocket and pulls out her charm bracelet. Joss accidentally brushes the palm of her hand when she takes it. An electric spark runs through her, and for a second, she swears she can see purple and gold lightning make its way between their fingers. 

She hears a slight...not quite a laugh as she clasps it on. 

“What?” she asks, shoulder muscles coiling and tensing. 

“Nothing. I just like the way your face looks when you’re looking at the bracelet. It’s softer, not as hard,”

“Yes, I know what soft means, Nora, but thank you for clearing it up,” she winces. It was _meant_ to be teasing, but it came out all wrong. Nora doesn’t react, though. 

“What does it mean? To you?”

Joss pauses, flicks hair out of her face.

“Not all my birthdays have been completely awful. Twelfth birthday. My dad gave me this.”

She twists her wrist in emphasis, the fluorescent lights glinting off the gold of the charms.

“I thought it was a sign, that he cares or something. Turns out, I was stupid. Last time I make that mistake,”

She tries to sound tough, flippant, but a hint of loss creeps into her voice anyway. 

“You’re _not_ stupid.” Nora says, an edge of fury leaking into her voice. She tightens her grip on Joss’s hands, to the point where the twinges of pain start. It’s not uncomfortable though, it just makes her feel less alone. Like there’s someone in her corner. 

“You tell me something,” she says quietly. “Secret for a secret. Actually, that can be how I give you proof,”

“Yes!” Nora says, letting go of her hands to gesture wildly. “I’m...what would you like to know?”

“Not something too big. Just something I wouldn’t know otherwise,”

“Okay,” she nods, considering. “Um...I can’t drive, but my mom will teach me. My dad wants to teach me, but he gets _overzealous_ when driving. It’s nightmare inducing, trust me,”

“I do,” Joss says, more serious than the situation calls for. It’s...it’s just important that Nora realises that she trusts her. After all, she was the only person who believed in her. 

“I know you do,” Nora says, gentle. “I trust you too,”

After a few moments, the Weather Witch speaks again.

“I, ah, I actually can’t drive either. I’m not gonna learn, either. I have Raya and I have my staff,”

She doesn’t say what she’s thinking- _and what if I die for real? Driving won’t be much use then, will it?_

Nora’s soft smile falls as if she can read her mind.

“What are you going to do about Cicada?” she asks quietly.

It suddenly clicks.

Driving…Raya...Cicada.

“I’m going to get the Hell out of dodge,” Joss says briskly. Nora looks somehow surprised. 

“What?”

“What if he kills someone else?” 

“That doesn’t quite sound like a me problem. Look, Nora, I’m no hero. I don’t know if I’m even a good person. But what I do know is that there’s only one person looking out for me, and that’s me,” 

“You said Raya might be the one behind your deaths,” Nora cries, but Joss can tell it’s a last ditch attempt at persuading her and won’t fall for it. 

“I guess we’ll find out,” she says, coolly. “Won’t we?”

She tries not to look back at Nora’s inevitably saddened face when she leaves. 

\----

The _you’re leaving Central City_ sign is in the distance. Normally, it’s a standard dark green. Joss just sees it as grey today. 

“Joss,” Raya says insistently. She tries not to wince. This hasn’t been the first time Raya’s said some variant of, _“what the hell, Joss, why do I need to get you out of town?”_

“Your plan for the heist is to have Spencer hypnotise the staff of Central City jewellers, as well as some other stores but mainly that, to either get us the security info or to just turn it all off. If Spencer’s phone doesn’t work, I’m to use my weather staff to disable cameras or short out doors with my lightning. We’re not stealing everything, just enough to send a message to other criminal groups that we’re not just little girls,”

“How...did Spencer tell you?” 

For once, Raya’s voice is unsure, hesitant. 

“No. I’ve lived through this day three times,” Joss sucks in a breath, and now it’s her turn for her voice to tremble. “And Raya, I’ve _died,_ gotten murdered three times. By Cicada. I know he only kills metas, but my dad is a meta, yeah? So is XS, who publicly gave me a second chance. I think he’s killing me to get to them.”

“Joss…”

“I know. It sounds crazy, right? The other thing is, Cicada comes a few minutes before I get home. Which means Cicada would know how long a Young Rogues meeting would go for,”

It takes a minute to click. 

“No, Joss. No way. They _wouldn’t._ Okay?” 

It’s on the tip of her tongue to ask whether _Raya_ wouldn’t, but considering the car thief is getting her out of town, it could be considered rude. 

She jumps as sirens and red and blue flashing lights suddenly appear in the rearview and Raya curses violently, and Joss feels her vision blurs, because she was so close, she still is, and she breathes out when the Silver Ghost chooses to try and ignore the police car behind them.

And then another parks in front of them. 

Raya instinctively stops the car.

“No,” Joss hisses, panicked. What is she _doing?_ While it’s an hour before Cicada would go to kill her, she still doesn’t want to take any risks.

“Weather Witch and Silver Ghost?” 

The cop is young-looking. Older than them, but young enough that his face lights up at the prospect of the glory that comes with arresting two supervillains. 

“Shit,” Raya says miserably. 

Shit, indeed.

“Um, okay. Can you get out of the car-“

“I can’t!” Joss blurts. “I’ll die again!”

“Again?” The officer repeats, dubiously. 

“Mmmhmm. He keeps on trying to kill me, and I think he’s succeeded three times and the only way to stop him is to get out of town. Just... _please…_ turn the other cheek. Just the once,”

He looks past her. 

“Is she drunk, or on illegal contraband?”

“No. I don’t think so,” Raya says, after a few minutes of consideration. Her tone is still uncertain. 

“Wait,” Joss says, thoughts racing. “What happens if I get arrested?”

“Well, you and Van Zandt are going to be placed out in different wings with 24/7 surveillance. Round the clock guards. Which means, Jackam, you can’t break out. Again.”

“Good idea!” Joss chirps. She gets out of the car, ignoring Raya’s questions, even putting her wrists together to help the officer cuff her. 

“You know, when XS said she wanted a second chance, I never expected _this_ ,” he mutters, and she pretends to not hear him. 

Round the clock surveillance means Cicada can’t get to her, after all.

In the distance, a pair of headlights glow, and for a second, she tenses, shoulders going rigid in the white glow. 

It’s fine. It’s not him. Besides, her apartment is _literally_ on the opposite side of town, it would take far longer than this to track her down.

And yet, she can’t smoothe down the standing-up hairs on the back of her neck. 

“What the-” the cop begins to ask, but is cut off. Joss shrieks as the car plows him down. 

He bounces off the ground a couple of times before going still. 

“This isn’t happening, _this isn’t happening_ ,” she whispers.

“Joss!” Raya calls. Her eyes are wide, panicked. “C’mon,”

Joss is frozen, staring at the body, even as the killer parks. 

“ _Joss_ ,” 

Her friends’ tone is laden in desperation, like the sting of fresh blood on one’s tongue. 

And in the end, that’s what gets her moving, adrenaline pumping her heart faster. 

The other car door opens with a sharp click, and instinctively, she glances at the figure. 

_Cicada._

Had she had her weather staff, she would have made his own black automobile drop on him. 

Then she remembers now really isn’t the time, and also that getting the door open is gonna be hard- she’s handcuffed, after all. 

Cicada saunters toward her, deliberately slow even as her attempts become more desperate. Like a hyena toying with a gazelle.

And eventually, Raya slides across and opens the door from the inside, grabbing Joss’s arm and yanking her in. 

Before Raya can even slide across, Cicada’s jumped in front of the side window, slipping the dagger away,, and is aiming a gun at Joss. 

That’s new, at least. 

“Oh, _fu-_ “ she begins, but before she can get the hard c out, she’s waking up to Nora West’s face, and Joss can’t quite hear what the other woman is saying because there are twin gunshots ringing in her ears. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @tardisfanunited8 beta-ed.
> 
> As always, please comment with what you think/feedback, it's very much appreciated!


	5. 5

Joss blinks at Nora.

She thinks it’s Nora, at least. The world is still spinning.

If it is Nora, then that means she’s taken longer to wake up.

She shivers, not wanting that line of thinking in her head. 

First things, she needs to sort out what she knows. 

Cicada is stalking her. That’s a fact. She also doesn’t know how long he’s been stalking her. 

Which is more relieving than anything. 

Because if he has been stalking her for a while, then that means that it may not be a Young Rogue who ratted her out. Who sold her out to a murderer. 

_ Young Rogues… _

“Raya,” Joss murmurs, before throwing herself upright. “Raya!”

“Joss!” Nora says urgently, as she begins to topple. Warm hands grip her arms, and she frowns. 

Hadn’t Nora been on the other side of the room just a moment before? 

Regardless, she’s grateful for the other girl keeping her steady. 

And then she pushes Nora away. 

“I need to find Raya, I need to see her,”

“First of all,” Nora says, irritatingly commanding. “You’re definitely not going out with  _ only  _ my shirt on,”

“You work at S.T.A.R labs?” Joss asks absently, trying to find a way past the other woman. 

“Yeah,”

“I thought you were a CSI?”

There’s a pulse in Joss’s veins which tells her Nora West is lying to her.

And she’s always hated liars.

“I am! The Flash and XS work at S.T.A.R. Labs,” Nora says, “and I sometimes work with them. For meta-trials, y’know? In case a meta- or meta-tech user- says something to them that the general public may not know about,”

Her pulse dies down a bit. Not completely, but enough to know that Nora’s lie isn’t a threat to her.

Dimly, she relaxes and realises that, yes, Nora’s right- she needs to put some pants on.

Quickly, she obliges.

“Why’d you have to see Raya so badly, anyway?” the CSI asks, “I mean, what, are you two dating?”

“Would it be a problem if we were?” Joss asks, her voice sharp. 

“ _ No!  _ No, it wouldn’t. Actually, it’d be really hypocritical if I were, I used to have a crush on Spyn. Um, Spencer Young,”

Joss scoffs sharply, something burning at her insides. “Why?”

“Why are you dating Raya?” the other woman counters. "At least Spencer didn't kidnap me,"

“Okay, one, I’m  _ not.  _ Two,  _ why  _ are you so caught up with me dating Raya? Three, there is a world of difference between a car thief/gang leader and someone who messes with people‘s brains because they got saved by a pretty woman one time,” 

Nora makes a sound in the back of her throat, a protest she hasn’t quite thought out. 

“I never said I still have a crush on Spencer,” she eventually mutters. “I don’t. Soon after the hypnosis thing, I...I moved on,”

To who, she doesn’t say. 

“Why do you need to see Raya so bad anyway?”

“Nora,” Joss says quietly and seriously, “if I don’t get out of town tonight, Cicada will kill me. I’ve told you this in a past time loop.”

“How’d I know you’re telling the truth?” Nora says, softly like she wants to believe the Weather Witch. 

“You can’t drive. Your dad wants to teach you, but your mom will probably end up doing it. You told me to say that in a past loop.”

Nora blinks. 

“I believe you,” she says. “What…what does that have to do with Raya?”

Her question is reluctant, like she  _ knows  _ what happened.

“He killed her,” Joss forces it out painfully. “For helping me. And my death wasn’t permanent, but what if her death was? She’s...she’s a car thief and gang leader who really likes explosives, but she’s one of the only people I can trust. She’s my friend, she gave me a second chance, and I was the one who killed her,”

“First off, the day reset. She might still be alive. And yeah, I don’t know that for sure, but neither do you. Secondly, you did not kill her. Cicada did. Because Cicada is a murderous, genocidal maniac.”

Joss opens her mouth. 

“The other thing is, after you see Raya, what’re we gonna do?”

Her eyes narrow. 

“I need to get out of town,” she says, instead of what she wants to say.

Clearly, Nora’s a bad influence. She hasn’t even retorted to being cut off. Mainly cause the way Nora’s cut her off isn’t the way everyone else has cut her off. 

They cut her off, like they’re more important than her, make her feel  _ less.  _ Nora cuts her off like she’s listened to Joss and  _ engages  _ with what she’s saying. 

Not that she’ll ever say that. She looks down, fingers the hem of the S.T.A.R. Labs shirt when it hits her.

“Who’s faster? XS or Flash?”

“Flash,” Nora says, reluctantly. She sticks out her bottom lip slightly, as if she's offended by her own words. 

“Can you get him to take me out of town?” Joss asks. “While I find Raya?”

Nora nods, eyes darting over her face before starting to leave.

“Can I ask you something?” the Weather Witch calls, pulling her shoes out. “Why did you think I was dating Raya?”

Nora turns, biting her lip, contemplating.

“Because I saw the way you two looked at each other.” 

It isn’t until after she leaves that Joss realizes:

Nora’s never seen her and Raya look at each other.

\---

Raya is sitting in one of the red leather booth seats at Jitters, texting someone. Occasionally, she swipes at some hair in her face. But she’s breathing and alive.

Joss nearly sobs. 

“Hey!” she says, trying to contain herself so she doesn’t run over. “Stand up,”

“O- _ kay _ ,” Raya drawls, tilting her head, confused. 

“Just...humor me,”

“Don’t I always?” the Silver Ghost asks, rolling her eyes as she stands. Joss slides her arms around her, closing her eyes as Raya tentatively pats her back.

“Is this, uh, something we do now?” she asks, holding the Weather Witch more loosely than Joss is holding her.

“I’m just really happy you’re alive, that’s all,” 

“...I’m happy you’re alive, too?”

“Thank you. Look, I’m not gonna be able to make the Young Rogues meeting tonight…”

“Wh- did Spencer tell you?”

“Raya...I’m leaving town today,” Joss looks down as she parts.

“Why? For how long?” Raya demands.

“I don’t know. Cicada is after me. My dad called and left a message, saying that. So Flash is gonna take me out of town,”

“Wait, since when did you trust Flash, and more importantly, since when did you trust your  _ dad _ ?” 

“Since this morning. Look, Raya, I know how it sounds, but I have...someone in the police, someone who’s gonna help me,”

“Do you trust them?” Raya asks. 

The door opens, Nora walks in. She’s wearing the denim jacket again, and Joss feels the corners of her lips twitch upwards. 

“I think I do. I do.”

The Silver Ghost follows her look. 

“She’s pretty,” she says, almost neutrally, squeezing Joss’s hand once. 

“She is.” 

“Be careful, okay?”

Joss attempts a smile. “When am I not?”

“...I’ll pretend you didn’t just say that,”

It occurs to her that this might be the last time she sees Raya. At least, for this loop. But what if she left and it looped again? 

No. She can’t afford to think like this. If she’s right, she’ll wake up tomorrow not dead. And then her life will go back to normal. No unplanned-father-phone calls, no Cicada murdering her, no…

No Nora. 

She frowns. For some reason, that makes her feel strangely sad. Maybe it’s because Nora’s been such a vital part of the last five loops, maybe it’s the way Nora readily believes her every time she tells her what’s happening. Maybe it’s a little bit because Joss probably won’t ever see Nora’s smile, so bright it’s contagious, drawing her out of the darkness. 

“Hey,” Raya nudges her. “You’re okay,” 

“You think so?” she asks quietly. 

“Know so. You don’t half-ass anything. Part of the reason I hired you,” Raya grins, teasingly. Joss smiles back, but it’s smaller. She takes a step forwards, and suddenly, the sharp pain she felt last loop comes surging back in full force. 

She groans, tears prickling in her eyes as she wildly reaches out, trying to grasp onto a handle, bar, even the arm of a chair. 

“Whoa, hey. You alright?”

“Y-yeah, yeah, I’m good,” As she looks down at her hand, she can see her fingers shake.

_ What the hell’s happening to me? _

\-----

“Okay, so Flash has agreed to get you out of town. He’ll come by in a little bit,” 

Nora shifts from side to side, eyes darting around Joss as if Cicada’s going to jump out from behind a tree. 

“Thanks,” Joss says, smiling slightly. She wishes she didn’t. Nora’s eyes snap to her and she feels like the CSI is unpeeling her carefully constructed layers. What’s worse is that it doesn’t feel too uncomfortable. It doesn’t even feel like when  _ Raya  _ had scrutinized her. It’s more like Nora is looking past the Weather Witch, she who dropped a hummer on her father’s head and terrorized innocent people, she who joined a criminal gang and has grown so close to the leader, she’s the right hand woman. 

It’s not even like Nora sees Joss, all prickly edges and a bladed tongue, who doesn’t need anyone,  _ thank you very much _ . 

It’s like Nora sees Joslyn, the weakest part of her, the thirteen year old who would do anything for her parents to maybe love her, even just for an hour. 

And she’s not judging any of them. It makes Joss feel all warm and electric, like when she conducted lightning from her staff for the first time. 

Still, she has a reputation to upkeep, so she shuffles her feet.

“What?”

Her voice is not nearly as harsh as it could sound- she remembers Infantino street, she remembers all the anger she felt when she realized that people had tricked her,  _ again,  _ and she’d fallen for it,  _ again. _

“Are you  _ sure  _ you want to leave?” Nora presses, eyes darting across Joss’s face with concern. “It’s just...what if Cicada kills someone else because you leave? Do you want...I can help you,”

“Nora,” Joss sighs, “look, as good as you are, I...I can’t keep dying. I don’t know how many more second chances I’ll get. And if I die for good, then there’ll be not much point staying and trying to fight him,”

Nora nods, disappointment flying over her features and quickly quelled by a look that is not quite neutral.

“I put my number in your phone,” she says. “If you need anything at all, even just someone to talk to…”

“I’ll keep that in mind,”

Nora hesitates, rocking on her toes, looking like she doesn’t know what to do.

“Oh!” she says, giving Joss her bracelet. The Weather Witch tries to clasp it around her wrist but struggles. Nora helps, and when her fingers brush against Joss’s wrist, it burns, and for a second, Joss swears she sees purple lightning. And then Nora’s pulling back, giving her such a look of compassion earnestness that she aches. 

“See you, Joss,” she eventually says, softer and more gentle than the other loops, and squeezes her arm.

“Bye,” Joss whispers, feeling a pull at  _ something  _ in her stomach. 

\---

A few moments after Nora’s chestnut coloured bob disappears from sight, she looks around, leaning against a tree. 

“Dad!”

Joss’s stomach drops as she sees a little girl run into a police officers arms, and then it drops further when she realises just how she knows it’s police.

_ “What the-” the cop begins to ask, but is cut off. Joss shrieks as the car plows him down.  _

_ He bounces off the ground a couple of times before going still.  _

Oh God. What if that girl’s mother was another Julie Jackam? She had nearly condemned another girl to her life. 

Last time she’d tried to leave town, the cop and Raya had died. 

This time, who else would? More innocent people? Contrary to popular belief, she doesn’t like killing innocent people, and if she leaves Cicada to them…

She would be just as complicit. 

“Hey,” Flash says, his voice vibrating just as XS’s had, “sorry I’m late. Are you ready?”

“Change of plans,” Joss says. “I’m staying,”

Even with his face blurring, she can kind of see him furrow his brow. 

“Are you...sure? I mean, he’s killing you,”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed,”

It comes out more snippily than she had intended. 

“Look,” she says, taking a breath. “If he doesn’t kill me, who else will he kill? I can’t be the reason he kills others,”

“I can see what XS said about you,” he says, almost proudly. “You do have good in you,”

“Oh, please, I just want to take the son of a bitch down myself, for good,”

He seems disappointed, and she nearly laughs. He can try and get through to her, but he was no Nora. Speaking of…

“How’d you trust Nora so easily? I mean, don’t get me wrong, she has a face that was made to get people to trust her, but…”

The pulse beneath her skin that says there’s something she should know but doesn’t starts up again.

“She’s CSI,” Flash says, except it’s too quick, and now she recognizes his voice. He wasn’t vibrating his voice at Porter Plaza, which means she would have had to see him elsewhere and would have recognized his voice. But she hasn’t interacted with many men lately...unless…

Nora was the CSI witness for her trial, but wasn’t there someone else? Someone who had to go, who’s whisper was loud enough for her to hear. A man.

_ “There’s been a car theft.” _

She folds her lips in, squeezing her eyes shut as the facts wash over her.

The male CSI from her trial was the Flash, and that would mean-

_ “Because everyone deserves a second chance. And besides, last time I saw you, you wanted to pay for what you did. You’re not a bad person, Joss,” _

_ “You asked me to give you a second chance. Now I’m asking you for a second chance! Joss, this isn’t who you are,” _

_ “I saw the way you two looked at each other,” Nora said except Nora had never seen her and Raya interact...but XS had.  _

“Nora,” Joss breathes, narrowing her eyes while pieces fall into place.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she says innocently. Perhaps too innocently- she can see his eyes narrow, even through the vibrating. She decides to change the subject before he can think too hard about it.

“Look, I know I got you out here, but...it wasn’t necessary,”

She sighs, shoving a shaky hand through her hair. 

“You don’t have to be here. I’m sure there’s a cat up a tree somewhere that needs you more than me,”

He lingers but eventually leaves. When he’s out of sight, she pulls out her phone and texts Spencer Young, who immediately calls her. 

“Why’d you need a photo of XS?”

“Well, I mean...it’s...you take really good photos!”

Spencer scoffs. “You’ve never once seen any of my photography. Don’t lie, Joslyn,”

“ _ Joss _ ,” she snaps. Look, she may be in a nightmare-ish reliving day loop  _ thing _ , but that doesn’t mean she’ll let anyone call her by her full name. It’s as important to her as the identification of Weather Witch is. 

“You’d better have a really good explanation tomorrow,” Spencer grumbles. Joss smirks to herself.

“Don’t worry. I will,”

As if she’d have a tomorrow.

There’s a beep in her ear, and she realises that Spyn’s hung up. She starts walking in the general direction of her apartment, when her phone lights up.

Her breath catches. While XS’s face was partially concealed by smoke (God, was  _ Spencer  _ the one to burn down Central City Picture News? No wonder Raya was so insistent on her being in the Young Rogues), there was no mistaking the features of the woman’s face.

Nora West is XS.

At first, she feels slightly smug. She had a speedster on her side. Not only is Nora a speedster, but she has a team of heroes behind her. 

But then she frowns, sagging. Why hadn’t Nora told her? Even after Joss had opened up to her. Even when she had told Nora about being murdered. Maybe- despite what she’s said- she doesn’t trust or believe in Joss after all. 

Which hurts more than expected. 

Because if that’s true, then who’s to say Nora’s actually on her side?

Maybe it’s best if she goes back to not trusting anyone. Ever. 

And as lonely as that sounds, at least she’ll be safe...ish.

\---

_ Missed calls: _

_ Nora: 6 _

_ Raya: 5  _

_ Mark.: 3  _

_ Spencer Young: 1 _

Joss doesn’t call anyone back. She’s brooding.  _ Sulking,  _ a voice that sounds irritatingly like Raya teases in her head, and she immediately shushes it. 

She’s not  _ sulking.  _

She’s merely  _ thinking.  _

_ Maybe  _ her proclamation of not trusting anyone ever again had been a teensy bit dramatic, but she’s getting killed in a day loop. She thinks she’s entitled to be a bit dramatic.  __ How hadn’t she realised Nora was XS? Okay, yes, she had thought during her trial that the pretty CSI looked uncannily like the speedster, but the minute she tried to put her theory to use, she had vibrated her face. To conceal her identity from Joss. Which was  _ fair enough.  _ But why hadn’t Nora  _ told  _ her? When she was opening up about her mother, about running away, about everything that she hadn’t told anyone. 

And okay, Nora’s not, like, obligated to tell her. But...she can’t help but think of Raya. She died in the last loop. She could feel the Silver Ghost’s knee, pressed against her own, as one of the strongest people she knew went cold. 

Maybe Raya would have lived if Nora told her. They easily could have come up with another plan.

It’s not like Joss would’ve told anyone. 

Did Nora know that?

She groans aloud, pressing her face into her fist. She’s overthinking, she knows she is. It’s just so hard to not overthink.

Look,  _ logically,  _ she gets why Nora didn’t tell her, she really does. She’s still a criminal, and Nora couldn’t have known that she wouldn’t immediately tell Raya. The other half of her brain is whispering that maybe if Nora had told her, she could have thought of a plan last loop where Raya wouldn’t have died (god, she’s going to hear the sound of those two gunshots for the rest of her life, isn’t she?).

_ Or what’s left of it. _

She puffs out a breath. Going down this particular road isn’t going to help her not get killed. She has to think. About how she can survive this day. 

Going out of town isn’t an option for her anymore- it just leads to people getting killed in her stead. And barricading everything also wasn’t an option.

She frowns, thinking back on her third death. While the details were foggy, given that she was half asleep at time of death, she could have sworn the hands were a bit too small to be Cicada’s. 

So there were two people. Cicada and whoever hired him.

She’s not contemplating another killer who decided to kill her today by chance. Surely she hasn’t pissed that many people off to that much of an extent. 

She hopes not, anyway.

Sighing, Joss grabs her phone, opens a new Notes document, and types in:  **suspect list.**

She starts by putting the people down she knows are innocent and then pauses.

She can only think of Raya.

She can only think of one person who wouldn’t have had her killed. Okay, maybe Brie and Spencer wouldn’t have wanted to cross her or Raya by killing her directly, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t have hired someone else to do it for them.

Her dad was another option. Yes, he’d warned her, but it could be a trap. Letting her get too soft and comfortable before striking the final nail into the coffin of their relationship. Maybe that was too much of a stretch, even for the Mardons, but it was still viable. He, after all, sought revenge against any slight, and what bigger slight than his own daughter killing him in cold blood? 

There was only one problem- Cicada liked to kill metas more than seek their advice on who to kill. 

Still, she’s not ruling anything out. 

Though reluctant, she writes down “Nora West/XS” as her last suspect that she knows. Yes, she was cute. Yes, she had helped Joss and she was thankful for that. But could her spiel about second chances and “this isn’t who you are” be masking something dark, deep underneath? Nora was abrupt in her opinion about Joss, every time. And she so easily concealed the fact that she was XS. She could be hiding something else. 

Sighing, she puts her phone down. She’s being ridiculous. And paranoid.

But maybe she’s right to be. 

_ Why is this so hard? _

Maybe it’s none of the people she knows and trusts, maybe it’s a total stranger. But is the devil you know or the devil you don’t better to want you killed?

She needs a break. In more ways than one. She picks up her phone again and listens to her dad’s message all over again, pretending like it’s the first time she’s heard it, frowning softly as she listens. And then it hits her, like lightning hitting a plane and tearing it into three and she swipes into messages, her fingers flying over the keys.

_ I need my weather staff. I’ll explain everything tomorrow, okay _

She smiles, vicious, rereading her message. 

_ Let’s see how Cicada likes being struck by lightning. _

_ \----- _

The only problem with Cicada being struck by lightning is that she can only strike lightning outside. She can cause sparks indoors, but she’s learnt that she needs the natural electricity in the outdoor air to cause bolts of lightning.

This would be a problem if she were to confront him in her apartment. She likes her apartment, she’d rather not destroy it, even if it’s only temporary. 

This means she’s gonna have to face him outside which is probably scarier. Because if she does that, then he could be anywhere. It’s harder to strike lightning at someone she can’t see coming. Yeah, maybe she can generate lightning to circle around her, but there’s too many things that can go wrong, and she’s not going to make a calculated risk on her own life. 

Any  _ more _ calculated risks on her own life, that is. 

She has to force herself to stay calm: not staying calm would lead to her panicking, and if she’s panicking, she can’t use her weather staff to shoot lightning. 

“Alright. If I were a metahuman serial killer, where would my lair be?”

Joss figures metahuman serial killers don’t just fall out of trees, so there had to be something else to the story, a catalyst. 

She glances at her weather staff. 

There were glowing orange markings there, too. 

So he would have popped up  _ that  _ night. The night where she thought there was a storm and glowing, purple balls of satellite were crashing to the ground, and for a second, she thought one was going to kill her, only for a purple blur to shove her back. 

_ Nora.  _

_ Focus, Joss. _

The...what did Flash call it?  _ Oh yeah.  _ The Enlightenment gave Joss her weather staff and it must’ve given Cicada his dagger. 

And it had almost killed her and Spencer (and presumably Raya, not that either of them had actually talked to each other about That Night), so it’s not a stretch that Cicada may have someone who got hurt, and  _ that  _ was the catalyst for his murderings. After all, Flash (and XS, Joss realises) was the one who punched the debris out of the sky.

She can see where he’s coming from. He’s not the only one who was hurt by metas, after all. (It had taken weeks for the bruises to fade where Nora had held her arm tightly, and she still gets vaguely nauseous if she’s faster than the maximum legal driving speeds. Though she doesn’t know whether that’s Raya or Nora’s fault more.)

But her ability to emphasise with him falls short of actual sympathy. Maybe if he’s not actively trying to kill her...

Whatever, she’ll deal with those feelings later. There’s the sound of a stick breaking because someone’s stepped on it. 

She tightens her grip on her weather staff, bracing herself. Sparks shoot off the top vane. 

She’s ready. She’s so  _ goddamn  _ ready. 

The hair on the back of Joss’s neck stands up as she feels someone watching her, and a stream of blue-white lightning starts fountaining off the end of the weather staff, even before she turns around and shoots. 

At the wrong person. 

“Spencer!” she cries, dropping to her knees in front of the other girl and letting go of her staff so she can shake Spencer Young. “No,  _ no,  _ Spencer!”

She had thought that she wouldn’t nearly feel as sickened as when Raya died, but killing Spencer was a close second. Even through the mutual dislike, she was still a co-worker. Still someone Joss sees every day, still someone who knows Joss down to her coffee order. 

She needs...she needs to get help. 

She scrambles to her feet, grasping for the iron handle of the weather staff. It’s gone. 

Turning around, she sees Cicada, holding her weather staff, pointing it at her. She backs off a step, yet feels slightly relieved. 

“You can’t use that,” she points out, “it’s meta tech, and meta tech can only be used by the handler,”

He looks down at the weather staff in his hands, before snapping his gaze back to her, and then he swings the iron wand, the vane of the weather staff smacking against her face and causing pain to explode from there. 

Joss feels gravity weigh her down, and she collapses next to Spencer, her vision blurry and eventually going dark.


	6. 6

Joss wakes up, pain exploding from her head. She can’t even see yet, white lights flash in front of her eyes. 

“Oh, hey, you’re up,” Nora’s voice is unnaturally loud, unlike the other times. And then Joss realises that _no,_ XS isn’t being unnaturally loud, but something’s wrong with her head, and the CSI’s voice is distorted. 

She sits up, thinking that the movement would help, but it worsens the pain. 

“You okay?”

Nodding, it turns out, is quite possibly the worst thing Joss could do, and then she quickly realises that shaking her head is far worse, her stomach rolling with nausea at the pain the movements cause. 

“Ow,” she whines before looking up at Nora- she thinks it’s Nora, at least, her vision is still blurry, “could I please have some painkillers?”

Nora looks like she’s nodding, and passes the bottle on her desk to Joss, closing the bottle inside the Witch’s hand. She shakes several pills into her hand, stopping when the amount of tablets in the bottle noticeably recedes.

“That is...a lot. I mean, you shouldn’t have that much. It could kill you,” Nora warns. The Weather Witch chuckles dryly.

“Oh, if only it could be that easy,”

A few moments after swallowing the pills, Joss’s headache recedes a bit and she can see more clearly, and smiles. She has a plan. Step one, be a better person than the last five days. 

“Thank you. Hi Nora,”

Nora looks sort of happy, and it makes Joss feel oddly warm and pleasant.

“Hi. I, uh, I wasn’t sure you’d remember me,”

“I remember you. Okay, I need to tell you something,”

Nora nods, and Joss takes a breath in.

“I’m going to die tonight. Cicada’s gonna kill me. I know because I have lived through this day five times already. My clothes are in the closet; you can’t drive,” she looks up. “Not that you would need to drive. Isn’t that right, XS?”

Nora’s mouth falls open, her eyes darting across Joss’s face.

“I’m not about to tell Raya.” she adds.

“How...how did you find out? Did I tell you in a past loop?”

Joss bites back _your secret identity, it’s really not worth much_ on her tongue, reminding herself that she will be nice today. 

“I just remembered when I tried to murder my father, you didn’t do the whole vibrate-y voice thing, and then I realised where I heard it again,”

Nora nods, thinking. 

“That’s really smart, actually,”

“Well, you don’t need to sound surprised. Believe it or not, I _am_ reasonably intelligent,”

Nora looks a bit surprised at the sudden sharpness in Joss’s voice, and she quickly corrects herself. 

“I mean, thank you,”

“How is Cicada killing you?”

“Stabbing, choking, shooting...one time, he used my own weather staff against me,”

Joss’s voice rises in pitch at the indignity she went through in the last loop. She’d gotten used to him murdering her, but to use the weather staff was a line crossed. 

Nora looks suitably angry. 

“God, that _dick..._ we’ll stop him, Joss, I promise, I’ll help you,” 

She puts a hand onto Joss’s and presses down. The firmness of the gesture is comforting. 

“You don’t have to do this alone,” Nora says, softer. 

Joss looks down at their hands, and she smiles, for once, content. 

And then, of course, her phone rings, breaking the moment. She checks the ID and groans.

How her father had an uncanny gift of ruining her life and every...not quite happy but damn close to it moments she had, Joss would never know. Nora looks over her shoulder. 

“Mark...like your dad? How’d he get your number?” 

“Someone betrayed me,” she says sourly. She would never forget picking up the first call from a strange number and hearing her dad before hanging up and storming into the Young Rogues HQ and threatening to cause another lightning tornado in the building if one of them had told Mark.

Huh. Perhaps there was another reason why Raya didn’t want her using her staff. 

“Do you know...he broke out of prison when you…”

Seemingly remembering that Joss was in a bad emotional state when she tried to kill her dad, Nora changes course.

“Your dad broke out of prison, do you know where he is?” 

The Weather Witch shakes her head. Nora nods.

“I thought you might not. That’s okay, though,”

This time, she didn’t even need to remind herself to be nicer, as she looks at Nora with a little smile.

“Thank you,”

She doesn’t say for what. She doesn’t know for what. Maybe it’s because she accepted her not knowing something, maybe it’s because Joss is quickly finding out that XS is the calm in her storm.

\-------

Joss decided that she was not going to skip Raya’s coffees. She did in the fourth loop and then Raya died. Not that it was necessarily her fault- it was Cicada’s decision, as Nora had said. Still, she can’t say she doesn’t feel a little bad for what happened. Maybe more than a little bad. 

This time, she buys the coffees- even though she figures Raya’s bank account would have reloaded by the end of the loop. She owes the Silver Ghost a lot. Coffee can start off her thanks.

“And one Zoom for you,” she says, sliding the beverage over to Raya, sitting down opposite her with her XS. 

“Okay. What did you do?”

Joss frowns. “Did I have to do anything?”

“Yes. You always bribe me with caffeine when you want something that you know normally I wouldn’t give you,” the Silver Ghost gives her a pointed look. “Or when you’ve done something,”

“You’ve always known me better than anyone else. Fine, I’ll bite. I can’t make tonight’s meeting _and_ I need my weather staff.”

Raya sighs. “What, did Spencer tell you?”

“Yes,” Joss lies because yeah, Spencer would be pissed, but she’d forget all about it in the next time loop. 

The time loops were looking better and better each time. Save for being murdered. 

Raya, too, looks pissed. “I _knew_ I couldn’t trust her. _Fine,_ only because it’s you, and it’s your birthday, _and_ you gave me a Zoom,”

Joss had kind of honestly forgot it was her birthday. 

“You’re the best,” she says, relieved. 

Raya smiles, smug. “I know,”

Joss grins back. 

——-

Her phone rings. She knows who it is even without seeing the ID. After all, he’s called at this time today five times. 

She swallows, feeling the world spin. The four letters on a black screen, punctuated by a full stop because Joss is nothing if not fully committed to her level of drama, go blurry, as do the red and green buttons. 

She shouldn’t. She really shouldn’t. This would be terrible. There’s a reason she’s ignoring his calls. But...what if it made a difference?

And then Joss presses the green button and puts the phone to her ear. 

“Joss?”

He sounds almost as surprised as her that she’s picked up. She licks at her suddenly dry mouth and speaks in a tone that sounds like her and yet is not her own. 

“Hi Mark,”

“Why did you call?” she asks a few moments later when he doesn’t say anything else. 

“Cicada-“

“I’ve talked to XS, I’m getting help. I want to know why you called me. Why you’re trying to protect me now,”

A pause. 

“Joss, you’re my _daughter-_ “

“No,” she grits out. “No, _you_ do not get to play that card.”

“What do you want me to do then, Joss? Lie to you?” Mark’s voice is exasperated. 

“I mean, that’s _one_ shitty parenting box you haven’t ticked yet. Look, Mark, I’ve finally moved on from you and Julie, and I’ve built a life for myself, one that you’re not in, and now you’re trying to break into it, and it’s not _fair_ ,”

“You’re literally being targeted by a murderer, _that_ hasn’t happened,”

“You’ve never once cared about my safety. What’s changed?”

“Tomorrow...are you...can we talk tomorrow? I’ll explain-“

“How are you going to explain that you abandoned me?”

She inhales through her nose, and when she speaks again, her voice is too quiet for her liking. 

“That doesn’t make you sound that bad. You let me know you, let me _love_ you and then you ripped it all away from me. How are you going to explain that?”

He goes silent. Joss scoffs, but it sounds more like a sob. “Yeah, that’s what I thought,” she says, and hangs up. 

\-----

When Joslyn Jackam was thirteen, she ran away. 

That’s what she told Nora West. 

What she didn’t tell Nora West:

When Joslyn Jackam was thirteen, she tried to learn where her father was, and three years later, she tracked down Mark Mardon. He was laying low, and met up with her. 

And for six months, Joss got a taste of what it felt like to have someone who cared about her, maybe even loved her unconditionally. 

And then he left. 

And then he never returned. And it crushed her, like a truck hitting her from above. 

And thirteen year old Joslyn’s heart broke for the second time, but then she grew angry. 

_Furious_ , even. She _hated_ him, more than anyone else in her life, a surety that thrummed in her blood. He’s a selfish dick who doesn’t give a damn about her, and why should she care?

She’s _done_ caring about him. Blood is thicker than water, but it spills just as easily, and from now on, she is not going to spill any blood for him. For any of them. 

And that was how Joslyn turned to Joss, and Joss only wanted one thing from her father. 

Retribution for being crushed.

——

She’s so caught up in the memories of emotion that she misses the first knocks at her door.

“Who is it?” she calls.

“Nora! Can I come in?”

Joss nods before remembering that Nora can’t see her. “Yeah!” she calls.

Nora smiles as she opens the door.

“Hi,” she greets, “how’re you going?”

“Fine,” the Weather Witch says, as if she isn’t huddled on her bed, clutching at the weather staff. “How did you find out where I lived?”

“Raya...I asked,” Nora shrugs. “Said I needed to give something to you,”

“Do you?” Joss asks, unsurprised. This, after all, happened every loop. What’s surprising is that she asked Raya- did she not remember that Raya tried to blow her up and hit her with a car? 

“Yeah,” Nora reaches into her pocket. “Here,”

It’s the charm bracelet. 

“Thank you.”

“Can I…” Nora gestures to the bed, and Joss nods. XS sits on the bed, next to her, and holds out her hand. She hesitates, and then places her wrist in Nora’s hand. The speedster clasps it, and Joss gets a sense of deja vu when she feels electricity that emanates even from Nora’s fingertips, brushing against the bare skin of her wrist. 

“Can I ask you something? Would you...consider going...coming to S.T.A.R. Labs just until this case is finished?”

Joss hesitates. Yeah, she trusts Nora, but at the same time…

_Joss, I deceived you, okay? Not them!_

_Icy roads ahead!_

She had been lied to, had lightning thrown at her, been threatened. When she had seen the ice wall, in the middle of the road, fear had gripped at her. She knew the ice wall that Raya was somehow still driving towards would have hurt her, maybe seriously. _If that car couldn’t phase…_

“I can’t,” she says eventually. “Flash tricked me-”

“To be fair, he wasn’t alone in that,”

“- and besides, you’re the only person in that team I trust,” Joss finishes, somewhat nervous in her admission. _What if Nora doesn’t accept it? What if she sneers right in Joss’s face?_

“Okay. Do you have anything to do here?” Nora stretches out. The Weather Witch blinks blankly.

“Why?”

“I meant what I said, Joss, you don’t have to do this alone. Not anymore,”

She holds out her hand, again.

And Joss links their fingers together.

\---

“...favorite color?” 

“Dark green. What about yours?”

Nora thinks about it. Joss knows this because Nora has a tendency to squeeze her hand when she’s thinking.

“Yellow,” she eventually says. “But purple’s a second,”

“Of course it is,” Joss says fondly because lately, that’s all she can associate with Nora: fondness.

“Your turn,” Nora says, with an air of impatience that belies her quick grin. And maybe it’s just a little fond, too. 

“Jitters order?”

“Decaf Flash, yours?”

“XSpresso,” Joss says, and then: “Nora, shut _up_ ,”

“I didn’t say anything,” Nora says, still with the smug little grin on her face. 

“You didn’t have to, your face said it all,”

She quickly corrects herself.

“ _Is_ saying it all,”

“Oh, c’mon, Joss, can you really blame me for being happy that _you_ like my drink? I mean, you saved my life once. I didn’t forget that, and well, you’re _you_ . You’re the Weather Witch, everyone talks about what a badass you are, and while your lightning tornado may not have been good, it looked _way_ schway,”

Joss is flattered by the assessment, even while feeling her face heat up. She has to duck her head to stop Nora from seeing the look on her face, as well as the confusion at that last word. It must be a Nora-ism, that’s all.

When she raises her head, her hair stays in her face. Instinctively, she flicks her head to get it out, but it just flops back into its first position.

“Here,” Nora says, and with the hand not holding Joss’s, she brushes the hair behind her ear.

Suddenly, it occurs to the Weather Witch how close they are. She swallows.

“It’s your turn,” XS says in an equally hushed voice as if she’s noticed it, too.

Joss takes a little breath, blinking while her heart stirs to life. 

“Um,” she begins. She stops. She can’t quite think of what to ask.

She can’t quite think, not with Nora this close to her, and suddenly, she can feel everywhere they touch, from their entwined hands to how their knees bump every so often. 

She bites her lip and for a second, she swears she sees Nora glance down at the movement. Warmness spreads inside her stomach, and she unconsciously shifts forward. 

For a second, she thinks maybe- almost-

And then the door to the building opens, and Cicada’s heavy boot falls on the first stair, and Joss is literally going to kill him. Nora looks at her, wide eyed. 

“Get out of here, Joss, _go!”_

“That...but this would leave you by yourself,” the Weather Witch says slowly. And she knows Nora can take care of herself, but Cicada kills metas, and Nora’s a meta, and if she leaves…

“No,” she says. “ _You_ don’t have to face him alone,” 

“Together?” Nora whispers. Joss nods. 

“Together,”

—-

“Last chance,” she says. Nora rolls her eyes. 

“How many times do I have to say that I’m _not_ leaving you?” 

Joss jumps after she can hear Cicada try her door after a couple of minutes, not allowing planning.

This was new.

“Create a distraction,” Nora says, very close to her ear. “You’ve got this,”

And with that, she reluctantly untangles herself and darts behind the opening door. 

Joss braces herself, whipping up the weather staff as soon as Cicada enters. 

“You wanna dance, jackass?” she sneers, lightning sparking off the edges, coming up with a plan. All she has to do is get to the windows, let Cicada try and kill her, and move so he accidentally breaks the windows, so she can strike admittedly weaker lightning at him. It would be better if she were outside but beggars can’t be choosers. 

She has no idea what Nora’s going to do, but she can work with that. 

She just knows that she can’t hurt Nora. 

He lunges, knife first, and she ducks, dodging out of the way, letting her instincts take over. Unfortunately, he misses the window and she lets her weather staff spark threateningly, daring him to try again. Nora catches her eye, motioning to strike him with lightning, but Joss minutely shakes her head, hoping Nora knows what she means. 

Apparently not, because Nora just looks confused.

Panic rises inside the Weather Witch. She can’t dodge forever, she knows that. 

He strikes again, and she cries out, narrowly missing the knife, which cuts her sleeve a bit, but at least it’s not her heart. 

She points the staff at him. 

“We both know you can’t use that, or else you would have used it already,” he says, his voice distorted, and Joss scowls. 

“You _goddamned_ asshole,” she snarls. “Why don’t we go outside, where I can really use this, huh? Or are you just too much of a coward to face people who might be stronger than you? I mean, that’s why you dampen metas powers, right?”

In hindsight, she possibly could have thought through her actions before opening her mouth, because he growls and begins to lunge when Nora hits him over the head with a somewhat heavy paperweight. 

He drops the knife in surprise. Nora grabs it, tossing it to Joss.

“Here,” she says, “hold this for a sec?”

“Big of you to trust me with this,” the Weather Witch comments.

“Oh, please, we both know you wouldn’t hurt me,” 

She’s right.

Unfortunately. 

“I’m gonna go get cuffs,” Nora says, turning around. Lightning doesn’t even get the chance to spark off her body before Cicada snarls, and summons the dagger back, slicing her palm, when he turns so his back is facing the Weather Witch grabbing the CSI’s arm and hauling her up with it, before flinging her across the room. Nora groans, winded, even as she begins struggling up on her side, and Cicada draws the dagger, striding over. 

“Wait!” Joss says, and it’s too urgent and she takes a second to school herself, breathing in slightly before rolling her eyes at Nora. “What’s _her_ power, huh? Is she even a meta? I mean, no one knows her,”

That part, at least, is true. Look, Joss’s lived in Central City her whole life (apart from a stint in Star City back in March 2015, but that was only because she got an anonymous tip that she needed to leave Central as some criminal wanted to wreck the city.) 

Point is, Nora has a Central City accent which means she probably hasn’t just moved here, and yet Joss’s never heard of her until the time she tried to break her father out of jail. 

“No one would care about her,” she adds, voice deliberately cold and cruel, emulating the Weather Witch, “no _metas_ would care about her.”

“Joss, what are you doing?” Nora wheezes, pushing herself up on her side. A good question. Joss actually has no idea. All she knows is that Nora’s done too much for her, and she won’t let her die for her. Cicada looks in between her and Nora.

“ _You_ care about her,” he says. 

“Well, yeah,” she says with an awkward laugh, “but I’m not a meta. Plus, she’s a cop. Niece to the best friend of the captain. You _really_ want to bring that down on your head?”

He considers her, and then Cicada swings his knife, she can hear Nora cry out, and she rolls her eyes, drawling:

“ _Again?_ God, _seriously?”_

And then Cicada plunges the dagger into her stomach. She gasps, despite the pain being familiar by now. 

She looks down for the first time, swallowing bile at the quick-spreading red stain across her shirt. Oh, shit. That looked...that looked really bad. She looks back up just as he summons the knife, and without the added weight, she crumbles back, waiting to wake up again. 

“Joss!” Nora says, as Cicada leaves. She scrambles over, eyes wide, face pale and despite trying to be strong, her lower lip starts wobbling. “Hey, _hey,_ it’s alright, I’m gonna get help, you’ll be _fine,”_

“Nora,” Joss says, her voice slowly going slurred due to blood loss. “Don’t. It’ll reset, you won’t even remember this...just don’t leave me.”

Nora shakes her head, now openly crying. “No, it’s going to be okay, I’m fast enough this time,”

_This time?_

“Just hang on, Joss, okay?”

“Nora…” Joss sighs, “thank you. At least I’m not alone this time,”

Nora’s face crumples further. “Don’t say that, okay? You’re fine, you’re gonna be fine,”

She jumps to her feet and Joss knows she only has a second before the last she sees of XS in this loop is purple and gold lightning. 

“Nora,” she tries to call, but it’s weaker than expected. She shakes her head. “It’s too late. Trust me. I know. Just stay here with me. _Please,”_

Nora angrily swipes at her eyes. “That’s not fair,”

“It’ll be fine. You won’t remember any of this, I promise,” she tries to smile. Nora sniffles before taking her hand, slowly stroking her thumb across the back of it. 

“You’re a piece of shit, you know that?” she asks, but not angrily, more sadly before sitting down next to her. 

Joss nods. “Thank you,”

And then she lets herself go, waiting for the next loop to the feeling of Nora periodically squeezing her hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, any thoughts? Let me know, comments and creative criticism are always welcome! See you in two weeks with chapter 7.


	7. 7

Joss wakes up. With a start, she realises that she’s in Nora’s room again.

_Nora…_

Nora had gotten hurt when she had tried to help her, Raya had gotten killed. Who else was there? Every time she had help, it just made the people she cared about worse off. No one was dying for her anymore. 

Even if the thought of never getting to know Nora again and never feeling what it was like to have her hand gently squeezed made her heart ache. At least Nora- and therefore, the city- would be safe. At least Raya would be safe. She sits up and her whole body hurts, and suddenly she can taste blood. 

“Oh, hey, you’re up!” Nora says, grinning brightly. Joss feels tears prick at her eyes. Whether that’s from the sharp sting in her stomach, or the fact that she’s going to have to eradicate that smile in a moment, she doesn’t know. She tries to say something but can only let out a pained groan. 

As soon as the pain abets a bit, she stands up, and immediately lurches to the side, pain flaring straight back up.

“Hey, are you okay? Do you need any-”

“I don’t need _anyone’s_ help,” Joss grumbles, despite the world spinning in her eyes. She takes a step away, her stomach lurches in pain and she’s falling, her vision blackening. 

The last thing she feels are warm hands preventing her from crashing to the floor, one on her lower back and one on her shoulder. 

—-

Joss can’t quite work out what she first sees when she wakes up.

It’s too blurry, but she can kind of make out a black clothed figure entering the room. She can vaguely see orange lightning and...Cicada. She has to move...she has to.

She can’t.

“No,” she says, but she can’t even hear herself. “Isn’t there someone else you could kill?

She struggles as Cicada walks over to the bed and squeezes her shoulder.

Well, that’s new. She blinks a few times and the vision clears.

“Hey, it’s okay.” Nora West says. Her eyes are swollen and puffy. 

“Hey,” Joss says slowly. “What happened? Where am I?”

“You were _fine_ and then you fainted. I took you to S.T.A.R. Labs,” the speedster shakes her head. “What happened?”

Joss opens her mouth, but pauses. If she tells Nora, she’ll immediately want to help. And then she’ll get hurt. 

“Nothing, maybe I’m still drunk.” 

An auburn haired woman that bears a resemblance to Killer Frost walks into the room, looking frazzled.

“May I ask for your medical records, miss Jackam?” she asks. Her name tag reads _doctor Snow._

“Let her get up,” Nora scolds. 

“Wait. Why?” Joss asks at the same time. Doctor Snow sighs. 

“We had to scan you, and these just came back,”

“Isn’t this a lab? Why do you have medical equipment in here?” she asks, trying to divert from the feeling of dread that curls low in her stomach. 

“It’s a long story,” XS says. 

“Okay, so, it looks like you have major trauma to your organs,” Doctor Snow gives her a scan of her lungs. Joss’s breath gets knocked out of her chest at the sight. Nora inhales sharply. 

“You can see the scar tissue. At first, we thought it might be a collapsed lung. I mean, you were there for the Enlightenment. It wouldn’t be a stretch. But I changed my mind when I saw the severity of the scar tissue, and not to mention the size of the legions in the lung...and this is only your lung. Your brain is bruised, and some of the organs you have lower in your stomach look identical to these. Joss...I don’t want to scare you, but you should be _dead_ with wounds like these,”

“Oh,” Joss croaks. Her mind’s racing as Doctor Snow continues on. 

“...I mean, I still need to do your ops and get your medical records,” she starts as the Weather Witch sits up, trying to unplug herself. “What are you doing!?”

“I can’t stay here,” Joss says through gritted teeth. “It’s not safe,”

“This is the safest place in the city!”

“No it’s not! He’s going to kill me again,” 

She’s fumbling with the IV drip when she hears Nora ask, in the same tone she used when Joss was trying to clear her name, “what do you mean, kill you again?”

\----

“Why did you lie?”

“Because! I knew you would try to help!”

“Oh, because that would be so\ terrible, wouldn’t it?”

“Considering I died trying to save you last time, yeah, it is!”

For the first time in what feels like 15 minutes, Nora’s stunned silent.

“You died saving me?” she eventually asks. “Why...how?”

“Cicada,” Joss eventually says, “he hurt you, he was trying to kill you. I pretended I didn’t know you were XS and convinced him not to kill you. He killed me instead,”

Nora shakes her head. “You know I’m XS?”

“Yeah. I put all the pieces together. Look, I’m not gonna tell anyone,”

“Why didn’t I save you? I’m fast enough to get help…”

“I told you not to. I guess I didn’t want to be alone for once…”

“Joss,” Nora says, “hey. You’re not alone. I promise, I’m gonna do whatever I can to keep you safe,”

“That’s the problem. Because somehow, whenever I see you’re in trouble, I do really stupid shit. Like dying or causing car accidents,”

“I knew that was you,”

“Nora. I need you to promise. If Cicada does come and try to kill me, you need to let him. My life isn’t worth the whole city,”

“No promises. Because, somehow, whenever I see you’re in trouble, I stand in the middle of the road to give you second chances or nearly get myself killed so you’ll live,”

Joss decides to drop it.

“Last loop...you said you were fast enough to save me this time. What did you mean by that?”

Nora sighs, casting her eyes down before sitting. “Back before I moved here, I had a girlfriend. Lia Nelson. She was with me when I got my powers. And we were stopping this criminal, August Heart, when he stabbed her. I was too slow to save her and had to just sit back and watch as she died,”

“I’m sorry,”

“That was the catalyst I needed to become faster, so no one else had to die. And well, here you are,”

“Technically I come back to life,” Joss points out, but the humour it tries for dies somewhere and it comes out raw and sad instead. “Nora, I’m so sorry.”

She kind of knows how it feels- Raya had, after all, died next to her. The only difference is that they weren’t dating at the time. 

“It’s okay.” XS says in that _trying to be brave_ tone but the Weather Witch can see right through it. “I mean, it’s not okay, but I’ve...dealt with that trauma,”

“You’ve buried yourself under more trauma?” Joss asks. Nora smiles thinly once she’s realised what she’s getting at.

“Maybe we’re not so different,”

“No, we are not,”

\--------

The Flash comes in.

“Alright, Joss-”

“Relax, I know who you are,” she huffs. The vibrating voice seems a bit ridiculous, now that she knows who he is. Flash casts an appalled look over to Nora, who is distinctly unmasked.

“I didn’t tell her,” she says, a tad defensively.

“I heard your voice at my trial, CSI Alex,” 

It was definitely something that started with A-L-E, anyway. Nora makes a strangled noise.

Flash seems to relax and takes off his cowl. 

“What’s happening?” he eventually asks. “Why are your insides like that?”

“This _infernal_ day keeps relooping,” she growls, “I wake up with Nora, I do my daily activities, I get home and Cicada kills me, and then the day resets, and _that’s_ what it’s doing to me.”

She jabs an accusing finger at the seemingly innocuous scans, laying face down near her feet. 

“Wait, you wake up with Nora?” Flash narrows his eyes.

“Not in the same room!” Joss explains, hurriedly, at the same time Nora groans.

“Oh my God, relax! I slept in the spare bedroom, plus, she was really, _really_ drunk. As _if_ I would’ve slept with her, that would have been _seriously_ un-schway,”

“So now that we’ve clarified that nothing happened between Nora and I, can we please get back to the part where Cicada has been murdering me?”

“You’re right. What have you tried?” Flash asks.

“Running doesn’t help,” Joss says, voice going soft and pained as she remembers the fourth loop. “And he hurts whoever helps me,”

“Who else knows?” Nora asks.

“No one! Because everyone has their memory wiped after today,” Joss shakes her head at the dubious expressions she’s receiving. “Uh, Nora. What’s my favourite colour?”

“What?”

“Favourite colour,”

“Black?” says Nora with not a whole heap of conviction.

“Dark green, and yours is yellow but purple is a close second,” she says with a smirk. “Also you can’t drive and your coffee order is a decaf Flash. How’d I do?”

“Yeah,” XS says eventually, blinking, “she’s telling the truth,”

“So I told Raya, and Nora told you at one point, but apart from that…”

Another dead end.

“So no one else knows Cicada’s going to target you?” Flash presses.

_“You’re literally being targeted by a murderer, that hasn’t happened,”_

_Cicada’s active again, and this time, I’m sca- worried that he’ll come after you_

“There may be someone who knows,” she says slowly, reluctantly.

\-----

When the Weather Wizard gets rushed into S.T.A.R. Labs, Joss shifts a little. She thinks it’s not noticeable, but Nora turns anyway.

Concern gleams in hazel eyes, and she has to look away before the too comfortable feeling of the speedster tearing her layers down resumes.

“What the hell’s this, huh?” Mark snarls, his hands coming up and forming a ball of lightning. “You just lock people up even if they didn’t commit crimes now?”

“No,” Flash says, and the Weather Witch has to give a grudging respect for how the superhero meets her father’s eye without backing down. “I brought you here to answer a few questions,”

“Yeah, that’s gonna happen! Tell me this, Flash, why would I ever help you?”

Four words plummet like boulders in the otherwise silent room.

Flash looks Mark in the eye and says in a tone that is near deadly in its seriousness: “your daughter. Joss.” 

And at the same time, though it’s weaker, Joss wriggles further up and calls: “Mark,”

\---

That minute of silence would be mourned. Perhaps forever, as the two most notorious metas in the city fight. 

“You brought my daughter into this!? To what, guilt me?” 

“We want to protect her!”

“How many people have died because you want to protect them, huh, Flash? Joss is not going to be another one of your projects.”

Joss squeezes her eyes shut and rests her aching head on her knees, pain rocking her brain.

Apparently, _now_ was the perfect time for the bruised part of her brain to act up. 

“Just listen!”

Quiet. Joss’s brain hurts as it tries to take all the silence in. 

“How did you know Cicada was going to target Joss?” Nora asks. Her voice is icier than normal. 

“Someone told me. What’s it to you, little girl?” 

“Mark, stop,” Joss sighs. He glances at her and his jaw goes slightly less tense. 

“The Rogues got an anonymous tip. I don’t know who sent it, but they were sure that you would be hurt,”

“Wait, why didn’t the Young Rogues…?”

Mark snorts and then, seeming to realise that perhaps the way to reenter his daughter’s favour would not to make fun of her gang name, stops. 

“I’m not sure,” he says simply. 

“Do you know anything else?” Flash asks, irritated. 

“No,”

“Even if he did, he wouldn’t tell you,” Joss rolls her eyes, suddenly realising. “He’s only gonna tell me. Isn’t that right?”

She flicks her hair out of her face in annoyance before nodding at the Flash. Sometimes, the extent villains would go to just to talk to her was mind-blowingly annoying. (See also: Raya kidnapping her)

“You can go, if you want,” she says, “I got this,”

He hesitates, eyes darting to Mark and back to Joss. “Are you sure?”

She puts on her best attempt at a confident smile. “Of course I am.”

Nora squeezes her shoulder. “Say the word,” she whispers, “and I’ll come back,”

Joss’s smile turns real, even after Nora leaves the room with Flash. 

“So,” he says, “teaming up with the Flash and his kid?”

“Kid?” she repeats. “You mean Nora? She works with Flash, but I don’t know if she’s his daughter. Whatever, stop deflecting. What do you know?”

“I know that you’ve really pissed someone off-“

“- unsurprising-“

“- and I know that Cicada knows that you’re close with enough metas that…” he trails off before narrowing his eyes. “How did you know Cicada was going to try and kill you?”

Shit. Joss doesn’t want to tell him. At best, he’d lose his shit. At worst...would he even care?

“A hunch,” she lies instead and subtly covers the scans with her leg. He gives her a skeptical look and she sighs.

“Okay, not a hunch...look, can you just trust that I know?” 

He pauses before nodding. “Yeah, I can do that. What are you gonna do?”

“What can I do?” Joss asks miserably. “If I try to run, he’ll kill Raya-”

“Raya?” he repeats. “Silver Ghost?”

“She’s my closest friend,”

“Didn’t she kidnap you?”

“Only once,” she says defensively. “And he would hurt Nora if she tried to help me. And he would kill me if I stayed. I’m screwed.”

“Sounds like you’ve lived through this day more than once,” Mark says, and she almost laughs.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” 

Instinctively, she draws her knees up to her stomach, but when she does, the scans rustle, drawing the Weather Wizard’s attention.

“What’re these?” he asks. 

Joss makes a feeble lunge for her scans but he’s already looking at them, his expression turning from confusion to dread. 

“Joss, is this— are these _yours_?”

“That’s what it says, doesn’t it?” she asks primly.

“But these are...how...Joss, what’s going on?”

“Just drop it.”

Mark looks angrier than Joss’s ever seen him. “No, I’m not going to _just drop it._ You’re...I don’t even know what to call these, but they’re not good, Joss!”

“You were right, okay? Cicada is coming after me! I know because he’s killed me six times!” she explodes. He goes silent and she looks down, struggling to keep her composure. A tear falls onto her knee. “There’s more there, if you’d like,”

“Why would I like _any_ of this?” 

“I killed you and it didn’t hold, he kills me and it’s not holding,” she shrugs, trying to seem nonchalant. “Can’t think of a more perfect payback from the universe,”

He makes a strangled noise in the back of his throat. “That’s not…I never wanted...I _don’t_ want this. Never have,”

“Right. I guess wanting me to die is tough for someone who forgot about me,”

“I _never_ forgot you,”

“Yes, you did! Because if you did remember me, you wouldn’t have left me with mom,”

He’s silent for a moment. 

“When you were young, I always thought...you were always so _good_ and full of hope, and maybe it was inevitable that I…”

“That you what?”

He meets her eyes. “That I was the one to break you,”

“You think I’m broken?” Joss whispers, feeling like all the wind got knocked out of her. He pauses before appearing to review his words, his mouth falling open and he shakes his head even before he speaks.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” 

“Maybe you should leave. After all, if I’m so broken…”

“Joss, c’mon…”

“ _Weather Witch_.” She snaps, curling her fingers into fists so tight, her nails cut into her palms. 

He sighs. “Joss, you’re being targeted by a killer. Let me help you. The Flash, this Nora, even the Young Rogues...they can’t protect you, not like I can,” 

“No,” she growls. “Unlike _you,_ I actually trust Nora and the Young Rogues because _they_ didn’t cause my abandonment issues,”

He wilts. 

“Joss…”

“Stop,” she says quietly. “I don’t want you here. “

“Let me help you,” he says, frustration layered in his voice. “Don’t tell me you were thinking of facing him alone,”

Joss purses her lips. “Maybe it’ll fix me,” she says coldly. “Would _that_ make you happy?”

“No, it wouldn’t! What about this situation would make me happy?” he grips her shoulders. “Joss, c’mon! It wouldn’t. You’re my daughter. The only family I have left. I want you to be safe.”

“Give me one example of when you kept me safe!”

“March 2015. I was gonna wreck the city with a tsunami. But I couldn’t just wreck the city with you in it.”

She blinks, her mind racing. 

“Why do you think no one screwed with you when you were 17? Because I made them fear me,” he sighs. “I was a shitty father, but I have always cared about you, and deep down, you know it, too. Now what are you gonna do about Cicada killing you?”

She frowns, averting her eyes before it comes to her. 

“Mark, when I tried to drop that truck on your head-“

“Sorry, you tried to do what?” 

“ - it was a hologram. And I killed you, not knowing it was a hologram.”

His eyes gleam, “so what, someone will direct a hologram of you and-”

“- and Cicada won’t work it out until I live to see tomorrow,”

She grins, somehow forgetting who it’s at. This would be her best plan yet.

\----

“I don’t know what other plans you’ve come up with, but this may be the worst yet,”

“Alright, stop!” Joss calls before facing Nora. “Hey, hey, you know there’s no one I’d trust more to be me,”

Nora squirms, looking uncomfortable. The Weather Witch knows this because the hologram of her does the same.

“Alright, fine,”

“Start over,”

“You goddamn asshole,” Nora snarls, which makes the Joss hologram do the same, “why don’t we go outside so I can show you how my staff really works?”

Suddenly, hologram Joss’s face changes from anger to uncertainty as Nora asks, “Was that...okay?”

Joss grins. “That was perfect.”

Nora smiles back at her. 

Flash shifts, and Mark clears his throat.

“Right! Let’s start again!” Joss sits back down, nodding encouragingly.

\----

“We have another problem.” Nora says an hour later. “What are we going to do with Joss? We can’t just let her go home,”

Joss hadn’t thought of that.

“What about the pipeline-”

“Over my dead body,” Mark growls, “she is _not_ going to be put into your little cages,”

“What would you rather, Mardon? She gets killed?” Flash asks, rattled. “Look, the pipeline is the safest place for her right now,”

“Unless he works out that it was a hologram and comes in, and she’s got nowhere to go and he kills her again,”

“The only palm prints that can open the cell doors is mine and team Flash’s,”

“Considering you ran me into one of these cages when I’d done nothing, I’m not reassured, Flash,” Mark sneers.

“I’m sorry, what?” Joss asks, unsure of who to side with here.

“He didn’t do nothing. He tortured and murdered an innocent coroner,” Flash tells her. “Look, Joss, it’s up to you. It would be confined, and a bit uncomfortable, but I promise, there is no way for Cicada to get to you. He doesn’t have a palm print scan on the machine, so he can’t open the door and get to you, there’s cameras so we would know how you’re doing at all times. There’s microphones so you would be able to tell us if you’re feeling unsettled, but-”

“It’s a 2 by 2 box, and you have to be fed through a cat flap,” Mark turns burning eyes onto Flash. “And unless they’re planning on a tour, the toilet is in the walls. You have to bump the wall, and it’ll come out,”

“What would you have me do with Joss, then, Mardon?”

“Easy. I’m at the border of Central and Keystone. Joss can come with me, and you won’t even have to know what happened to Cicada if he comes after her,”

“Or what happens to Joss because you grew arrogant,” Flash counters. Nora rolls her eyes at Joss, who smirks. 

“What do _you_ want to do, Joss?” she asks pointedly.

The Weather Witch hesitates, eyes flickering back and forth. While the idea of spending her night in a 2 by 2 cell was not appealing, it was safer than spending the night in Keystone and hoping that Cicada wouldn’t stumble across them. Reluctantly, she says this. 

“Fine,” Mark says through gritted teeth. “But I’m staying.”

She raises an eyebrow, rolling her eyes. _Of course he is._

——

“Okay, Joss, you comfy?” Flash calls into the microphone. 

Joss glares up to where the cameras are. “Beyond,” she deadpans. “Makes five-star hotels go to shame,”

She sighs, sagging. “I’m just tense.” 

It’s as close to an apology as she’ll get. 

“Joss, I’ve got to go,” Nora says, “but I’ll be back soon, okay? I just need to be close to the hologram to operate it, but hang in there. You’ll be fine,”

She says it with a kind of conviction that has the Weather Witch believing her. 

“Good luck!” she calls back, surprising herself. Why not, it’s a change. 

“Thanks!”

She can hear the grin in XS’s voice and it makes her automatically smile and close her arms around her legs, hoping to protect the sudden warmth that fills her. 

  
  


She hears the sound of XS walking off- Mark doesn’t know about her super speed after all- and sighs, pulling out her phone. Raya’s texted her. 

_Where tf are you?_

_Joss?_

_Your tracker says you’re at S.T.A.R labs? Why?_

_Don’t worry,_ she texts back, _I am at S.T.A.R labs but I’m safe, I promise._

_Now you have to tell me what happened._

_Tomorrow? I promise._

She jumps at a sudden alarm. 

“What’s happening?” she calls. Her phone says that Cicada should be in the middle of fighting hologram Joss. 

“Someone’s holding everyone in Jitters hostage. I gotta run,” Flash says. 

“No, wait, what about-“

The sound of him leaving seems to echo. 

“Cicada?” Joss finishes weakly. 

“Hey, I’m still here. Just hang in there, you’re going great,” Mark says, scuffling to the microphone set.

“I’m sitting in a cell smaller than my one at Iron Heights,” she says. “How else am I supposed to go?”

He huffs out a laugh. 

“So, heard you got into meteorology,”

“Yeah, and then I got forcibly removed from it, because I was a _danger to myself and others._ Why do you care?”

“Can’t I want to get to know my daughter?”

“You haven’t wanted to since I was sixteen. So no,”

“We can... talk about… that, if you want,”

Joss frowns in thought. “Yeah, actually, I would love an explanation on why you left me,”

“The first time, I was younger than you and I panicked. I was already taking care of Clyde full time and to add a kid to the mix? And I was already a criminal. I didn’t want you being dragged into it. My parents took me on drug runs, when I was seven. I knew I didn’t want to be the same as them so I left you,”

“What about when you got to know me?” Joss interrupts. Her voice is both too thick and thin at the same time and she thinks she’ll cry. 

“When I got to know you,” he says, and she thinks his voice sounds the same as hers. “The first thing I thought was that you were perfect. Hell, from the first meeting, I was thinking of white picket fences and you, Clyde and I without being criminals,”

“And then you saw I was broken,” Joss finishes bitterly. 

“And then I saw what I had done to you. Joss, you were stealing and drinking and fighting. I was terrified that you would get hurt or worse, just to impress me. And I thought that maybe if you hated me enough, you would stop, and the only way I could think of getting you to hate me was leaving without saying goodbye,” Mark sighs. “For what it’s worth, you’re still perfect to me,”

“Don’t make me smile. I’m still angry with you,” she says, her lips twitching up anyway. 

“I would expect nothing less,”

“ _But_ I’m willing to give you a second chance. Just...take things slow?”

“Done. Can I...is it okay if I try to get to know you?”

“I’ll let you know if the questions go too far,” she says eventually. 

“Any boyfriends?” Mark asks hesitantly. 

“Girlfriends. I’m a lesbian.”

“Right. Any girlfriends?”

“No,” she says. “I dated Raya for a few months but then we had to break it off because of Spencer and Brie throwing a fit. We’re still close, though,”

“Joss,” he says after a minute. “I just want you to know...that I’m sorry. For everything.”

She nods, knowing he can see her. She doesn’t quite forgive him, she can’t, not yet, but she can’t hate him anymore. It’s draining and exhausting. 

“I know,” she says before her phone lights up. “Oh, Nora just texted me. It all went according to plan. She’s on her way back here, she’ll be here in five,”

“You hungry?” Mark asks, “since Nora’ll be back soon, do you want me to grab you something?”

“Can you grab me some Thai?” she asks, stretching her legs out. They almost touch the other wall, and she knows why her dad would have hated being in here. 

“Done,”

“Thanks, Mark,”

He needs to take a moment to respond, and his voice is nervous when he says, “always,”

——

Five minutes later, she can hear footfalls on the floor above her. 

“Nora?” Joss asks, “hey, how’d you go?”

No reply. 

“Flash?” and then, “ _Mark?"_

There’s a beep and then gas starts pouring in through the vents in the cell. 

“Hey!” she yells, banging on the glass of the cell door, “ _hey!_ What the hell!? Hey!”

Eventually, her eyes roll back and she collapses against the cell door. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this marks halfway through the story AND on the 4 month anniversary of when I started this! Thank you to anyone who reads, likes, subscribes, and comments, all of it makes me smile. 
> 
> See you in two weeks with chapter 8!


	8. 8

Joss gasps awake, coughing and choking until black spots appear in her vision, and even then, she needs to take a minute. It’s only when she’s calm enough that she’s merely gulping in air that she can feel the hand on the small of her back.

“You’re okay,” Nora says, the words sounding more like a query. 

“I’m really not,” Joss says eventually, letting her head fall into her hands. Her voice sounds rough, even to her own ears. “Nora, I’m really not okay,”

“What happened? Is this…” the hero trails off before asking, “is this why you were drinking so much last night?”

God, that felt like so long ago. The Weather Witch starts laughing, and soon, it turns hysterical.

“I’m sorry. It’s...it’s just that felt like a week ago,”

It’s been over a week. Suddenly, Joss sobers at the fact that this has been happening for over a week. 

“I’m not a good person, Nora,” she says, heavily, “I’ve tried to drop a truck on my own father’s head, I’ve endangered the lives of dozens of people with my weather staff, and I started stealing when I was thirteen. Good people don’t do that,”

“But bad people don’t recognise when they’ve done the wrong thing, or they just don’t care. And you care, Joss, I know you do. That’s why you tried to take responsibility for your actions. Okay? I know that being a criminal isn’t who you are,”

“I’m literally in a gang,” Joss points out to avoid the weight of XS’s words. “A criminal one,”

Nora waves her hand around flippantly. “What do you even do in the Young Rogues? You don’t hurt people, Raya and Spencer are more interested in stealing, Brie’s more interested in her bees…”

“You know everyone who’s in the Young Rogues. Wonderful. Raya’ll be thrilled,”

If it doesn’t have as much bite to it as normal, Nora doesn’t say anything. 

“Oh, I am so lucky you don’t remember anything from the last loops,” Joss drawls. At least she’ll be spared from Nora’s “I told you so”.

“Loops?” XS echoes.

“Alright, Nora, I need you to take me to S.T.A.R. Labs,”

“But…” Nora says, looking more like a lost puppy. “I don’t have a car.”

“It’s fine, you have superspeed right? You told me in a past version of today,”

Technically a falsehood, but she doesn’t want to waste time explaining. 

As soon as she stands up, a sharp pain spirals through Joss’s chest. She groans, nearly collapsing again as she clutches at the spot where it hurts the most. 

“Hey, you okay?” 

“Fine,” she grits out. She’s not fine. She’s scared and she’s in pain and she wants to see tomorrow, but she also doesn’t wanna have to explain that multiple times. “I’m fine,”

“Okay, if you’re sure,” Nora doesn’t sound like she believes her. “C’mon,”

Joss braces herself for the nauseating sensation of Nora dragging her by the arm through the streets of Central City at a speed which makes the city blur. 

Instead, Nora gently puts one arm under her legs, and the other hand on her back before picking her up and rushing her to S.T.A.R. Labs.

Despite it being more pleasant than the last time XS used her superspeed, Joss still hates speedsters running with her, and can’t help but complain.

“I think what’s left of my organs are back in your room. I’m never trusting you to run at superspeed ever again. At least, not with me. I like my life, thank you,”

Nora clicks her tongue disapprovingly. “Don’t be so dramatic,” she says. “You’ll live,”

“Judging from recent events, that doesn’t look very probable,”

“What?” XS asks.

“Oh.” Joss winces in realisation, “I didn’t tell you yet,” 

And so she tells the CSI everything. Every death, what happened to her when she woke up, how many loops it had been… 

Nora doesn’t appear to be very pleased. 

“And you’re just okay with it!?”

“No, of course I’m not! But I’m not gonna just mope around until I die!” the Weather Witch argues. Nora scoffs.

“At least tell me you got help,” she says dangerously. Joss fidgets.

“Well, I did for some loops, and hey, now I am. That’s gotta count for something, right?”

“Why are you being so blase about this?”

“Because when you’ve died seven times, you kinda get jaded,”

Nora falls silent. 

“It gets worse,” 

“How could it...go on,”

“The day resets, and the only thing that changes is me, right? There’s only one problem. I keep getting killed. And that’s changed me. Um, last time...last loop, I passed out. You took me here while I was unconscious, and Dr. Snow had me scanned,”

“And?” Nora presses, nearly bouncing on her toes in impatience. Joss nearly laughs at the pout she’s given. “What did aunt Caity find?”

“My organs,” the Weather Witch says, her humour dying. “Nora, they aren’t good.”

Well, that was a bit of an understatement, wasn’t it? She tries again.

“The more Cicada kills me, the weaker I get. And Nora, you didn’t see my organs last time. I mean, the scar tissue and the lesions, and- Nora, it looks worse than a collapsed lung,”

She knows she’s babbling, she can’t help herself no matter how hard she tries.

“Okay, Joss- Joss! I get it. Look, we’re gonna help you. I can fix this.” Nora says, her voice soft and yet confident, like the start of a fire, when it’s not out of control yet, but one would know it would be soon, for the amber tips crackle warningly. 

“I know,” Joss says at the same time she tries to take a breath. “I know, I trust you,”

The fire dies down. Not completely, but it’s reduced to a soft flickering. 

“I know. I trust you, too,”

Joss smiles before remembering. “Hey, Nora, do you remember a man from, um, last night. Perhaps hooded and carrying a knife with orange, glowy bits?”

“...Oh! You mean the dagger!” 

“Knife, dagger, same thing. Either way, it’s stabby and it’s slowly killing me. Did you see Cicada last night?”

“No, but I know how to find him. We have satellites, scanning for dark matter,”

“Dark matter?”

“Oh. You don’t know what dark matter is. Um. You know your weather staff? That’s what makes your weather do their...weathering,”

Ah. So  _ that  _ was how they did it. Joss nods, making a mental note to tell Raya as soon as this whole thing is over. The thought of exposing something Nora trusted her with twists the Weather Witch’s insides a little, and not in the good way they had when Nora had held her hand. 

Then again, it could also be her organs, on their downward spiral. 

“So, what, you’re saying that there’s a way we can find out where he is? Nora, why didn’t you say that in the past four loops?” 

“Um...sorry,” Nora winces. “I don’t know why I didn’t, but things must’ve been  _ seriously _ schrap,”

Well, Joss can decipher the meaning from her tone alone, and she admits it’s fair. Loop four Joss would have leapt down Nora’s throat, loop five Joss barely saw Nora, loop six Joss was busy dying for Nora and loop seven Joss was passing out all over the place. 

“Alright, don’t worry about it. Listen, I’ll get scanned by Dr. Snow. I wanna know how close to death I am-” 

“God, can you  _ not _ put it that way?”

“-And in the meantime, can you get Raya? She’s at Jitters,”

Nora stares, wide eyed, and Joss sighs.

“Please?”

“Okay, fine, but first, I’m telling the team that I’m fine with you here. Trust me, they’ll attack first, ask questions later. You might’ve saved my life, but…”

“Right. Gotcha,” 

There’s a sour feeling inside the Weather Witch, and she’s guessing it’s because the people closest to Nora still think she’s a villain. She is, but…

For once, it makes her uncomfortable. 

Not so uncomfortable that she wants to stop being a Young Rogue, but uncomfortable enough. 

Right when she starts fidgeting, Nora speeds off. Before long, Joss can hear voices.

“She’s a criminal, Nora! And you brought her here?”

“She says she’s  _ dying,  _ dad! I’m not just going to  _ leave  _ her. Hey, Caitlin, can you please scan her?”

Flash huffs. “How do we know she’s not lying?”

“Because she’s  _ Joss!  _ You know she’s upfront about everything. And I don’t know, she wouldn’t lie about this. Dad, she saved my life. Why can’t I save hers?” 

Joss tilts her head, folding her arms. Nora’s the Flash’s daughter? The Flash, who is, like, her father’s number one enemy? She’s liking Nora more and more by the second. 

“Caitlin can scan her, and if she’s lying, you can lock her up. If she’s not, we have an obligation to help,” Nora’s voice turns to the heroic one that Joss has previously despised. Now, though, she likes it. 

“Leonard Snart,” an unfamiliar woman says, like that’s a point. 

“Fine,” Flash sounds exasperated and the Weather Witch makes sure she’s not smirking when he comes in. 

She interprets his souring face as he knows that she heard everything. 

“Alright, Joss, Dr. Snow is gonna scan you.”

“Thank you,” she says, looking past him at Nora, who smiles and nods before disappearing in a bolt of purple lightning. 

It isn’t until she’s in the middle of getting scanned that she hears XS’s voice in her head. 

_ Dad, she saved my life. Why can’t I save hers? _

Was this...all to repay a  _ debt _ ? Every chip at Joss’s walls, the pick being Nora’s bright eyes and wide smile? She thinks about the way she’s sure they almost kissed, back in loop six, and her stomach clenches. 

Did Nora think that was the way to repay the debt that she owed Joss for saving her life?

She had thought it was genuine. A mutual spark. But doubt tugs at her conscience, and she’s overthinking. 

The worst part is, there’s no one else to blame. Nora’s blameless. No, the only person at fault is Joss for thinking someone might actually  _ like  _ her. How could she have assumed something good would happen to her? She’s the Weather Witch, a rogue, the bringer of misery and Nora is a hero, the bringer of hope and joy. 

This wouldn’t help. She shakes herself out of it, realising that Caitlin’s finished scanning her. And from her confused and worried expression, Joss guesses that she’s seen some of her organs.

“Doesn’t look good, does it?” she asks rhetorically, trying to flash a winning grin at the doctor, who looks even more worried. 

“No,” she says carefully. “It doesn’t. Joss, what exactly happened to you?”

“I died and then I woke up. That’s the simplified version, at least,”

“What’s the expanded version?”

“Dr Snow, I know this is unbelievable, but I’ve relived this day seven times, this being the eighth. Today, Cicada will kill me. That’s what happened to me. Those lacerations? I’ve been stabbed. A hell of a lot more than I ever expected to be stabbed,”

“I can only imagine,” Caitlin says, a little bit of bite to her tone, and Joss grins. 

“Tell me about it,” 

“I need you to get onto the bed, so I can do obs.”

She opens her mouth, but the doctor puts one hand up as if anticipating that she would argue. 

“This isn’t an option. This is a statement. Let me do your obs. Now.”

_ Now I see where Nora gets it from.  _

She makes it known she isn’t happy, and yet gets onto the bed and offers an arm so Caitlin Snow can test her heart beat, temperature, and blood pressure.

There’s a flash of lightning, and the electronic machine stops short, making Caitlin mutter something under her breath.

“What the hell?” Raya van Zandt snaps. “You just kidnapped me,”

“Technically, I didn’t-” Nora starts, her voice hot with angry tension, but Raya cuts her off, the cold to Nora’s hot. 

“Technically, I don’t care,”

“I asked her to bring you here,” Joss says, finally intervening. 

“Joss?” Raya asks, narrowing her eyes with concern. “God, you look like shit,”

“Thanks. You look like a damn dream,” she tries to add as much sarcastic vitriol as she can, but turns out one of the side effects of relooping the same day over and over was a general fatigue that carries into her words, and both women look concerned.

“Fine. I’m  _ going  _ shit. Raya, you’re not gonna believe this, but I’m dying because I died,”

“What,”

“Cicada has been  _ murdering  _ me and I’ve died seven times. And then I woke up. Okay, you want the Young Rogues to rob the di-”

“Okay, I get it.” Raya interrupts. “God, Joss, do you think you can speak any more about our crime sprees in front of people who can put us in jail, and get back here in the same minute?”

Joss winces. 

“Okay, well, do you have a plan?”

“Well, no. not at this second. That’s why I asked you to come. You’re the best planner I know.” 

Raya rolls her eyes. “You know flattery doesn’t work on me,”

“It was worth an honest shot,” 

“We could make a hologram-“

“We absolutely are  _ not _ gonna do that,” Joss cuts Nora off, her stomach clenching guiltily when she sees the brief look of hurt that crosses the speedster’s face. “We did that, and I still died,”

Though it wasn’t until later. But still. 

“Really?  _ That’s  _ schrap. What can we do?” 

Joss opens her mouth, but yelps as a frozen stream attaches itself to the wall. 

Dr. Caitlin Snow has ice blue eyes and a white streak in her hair. 

“Perhaps let Caity finish her work,” she snaps, and  _ yep,  _ Caitlin Snow was Killer Frost. 

“Okay.” Nora winces. “Sorry, Frost.”

She trails out, looking like a puppy drenched with rain at the shelter. 

“I’m staying,” Raya declares, jutting her chin forward and out. 

Frost narrows her eyes, but eventually, the pupils turn back to brown and a horrified expression casts over her face while the white streak melts into auburn. 

“Oh my gosh, did she threaten you? I am  _ so  _ sorry,”

“It’s fine?” Joss asks. “What did the results say?”

“Well, from what I could read, your heart rate is low. Concerningly low.”

“Of course it is,” she mutters. “God, I just don’t get a break, do I?”

“Can Joss and I have some privacy?”

Raya’s voice is as commanding and powerful as ever, and Joss is, as always, in awe of how she’s taken command of the room, standing like she belongs in there, though nothing could be further from the truth. 

Caitlin eyes the two of them suspiciously, but then must decide that Joss is far too death bed-y to steal things and leaves. 

“Schrap?” 

“It’s a Nora thing,” Joss sighs and sits up, swinging her legs across to face the side. It’s slow, and embarrassingly shaky, but Raya doesn’t say anything, just sits next to her. 

“I can drive you out of town. Just say the word,” 

“I can’t,” she sighs, giving the Silver Ghost a small smile. “I did, once, but all it got was you dying, too. It’s better if the only one who’s dying is me,”

“God, you’ve been spending too much time with those hero martyr types,” 

She rolls her eyes, bumping Raya’s knee.

“Shut up,”

“Kinda suits you, though. Not as much as being a Rogue, but...it looks good on you.”

The weight of the words settle on the Weather Witch’s shoulders, nearly making her arms buckle under the pressure.

She isn’t sure whether to thank Raya or not, so she just touches their knees together. 

Joss’s phone rings before she can think to say anything.

“Why is your dad calling?”

“Same reason he’s called me the last loops. Cicada,” she rolls her eyes, pressing the green button and then holding the phone to her ear. 

“Hi,”

“Joss,” he says, “hi,”

“Cicada’s gonna try and kill me tonight. It’s a really long story that I don’t feel like explaining over the phone. If you want to help, come to S.T.A.R labs and stop Flash from flinging me in a cell. But you had better not leave, I swear to God,”

“Joss,” he says, “why are...why are you doing this?”

_ You asked me to give you a second chance, now I’m asking you for a second chance.  _

“Cause someone I care about gave me a second chance. So. If you want to reenter my life, come to S.T.A.R. Labs. If you don’t, well, I have other people,”

She hangs up before he can reply. 

“Last time I saw you, you hated your dad and never wanted to see him again,” Raya says carefully. 

“Yeah, well, XS gave me a second chance,” Joss says, before frowning. “Even if she’s only helping me because I saved her,”

“Sometimes I find it very hard not to slap you. Joss. Wake up. No one would go to the lengths XS is going to so they can repay a debt. I know what your mom has said, and I know that can make you think things, but XS wouldn’t have gotten me if she wanted to repay a debt. She cares about you, she likes you,”

“You think she likes me?”

Raya softens. 

“Of course she does,”

“What if I don’t survive this, Raya? What if I never see tomorrow?”

“Sounds to me like you’re giving up, Jackam. I’m disappointed. I never expected that from you,”

“I’m not giving up, I just don’t know what else to try,” she shrugs. 

“Wait, why did you tell your dad that Flash was gonna throw you into a cell?”

Joss finally grins. 

“Both of them left me to fend for myself last time. I want to see who wins the fight,”

Sure, she and her father may not be actively trying to kill each other anymore, but she hasn’t quite forgiven him, not yet. 

Raya snorts and gets up. 

“Where are you going?”

“To warn XS about the impending war you’ve so carefully constructed,”

That was fair. 

She doesn’t know how much time has passed, she’s still stewing on Raya’s words. 

_ Sounds to me like you’re giving up.  _

And then there’s a soft, delicate knock. She looks up. 

“You’re Joss, right? Can I sit?” An unfamiliar voice asks. She twists around. A gorgeous woman stands there, looking sympathetic and also crazy similar to Nora. 

“Sure, yeah,”

“My name’s Iris West-Allen, I’m Nora’s... cousin.” Iris West-Allen explains, sitting next to her. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“All bad, I’m sure,”

“Some,” Iris concedes. “But not all. Nora, uh, Nora actually speaks really highly of you.”

“Does she?” Joss asks, secretly pleased. Iris nods. 

“She’s also told me about your, uh, situation. Joss, I’m sorry. I...I kind of know what it’s like to have something like that hanging over your head. A couple years ago, I thought someone was… going to kill me.” 

Joss glances up. “What did you do?” she asks in a quiet voice that she wishes wasn’t quite so scared. Iris softens. 

“I lived. And you will, too, Joss. You just have to tell yourself that you matter,”

“But-“

“You  _ matter _ , Joss,” Iris repeats more firmly, looking pained. “And not just as a girlfriend or daughter, as  _ more  _ than that,” 

“I keep trying,  _ so  _ hard, but I always fail,” Joss confesses. Something about the West women makes her walls go down in a flash. Maybe it’s why her dad hates the West family so much. 

“What have you done?” Iris asks gently, snapping her out of it. 

“Loop 3, I realised it wasn’t a dream and barricaded myself in my room. Got strangled. Loop 4, tried to leave town, shot. 5, tried to kill him and he used my weather staff against me. 6, I teamed up with Nora, but he hurt her so I played like she wasn’t a meta and he stabbed me. 7, I got shut in the pipeline and someone poured poison gas through the vents. Everywhere I go, he finds me. I don’t know what else to do,” 

Iris’s face contorts into a grimace, and Joss quickly changes the topic. 

“How did you...nearly die?”

“You won’t believe me if I tell you,” Iris says, sadly. 

“No offence, but I just told you how a metahuman serial killer kills me over and over, at  _ least  _ seven times now.”

Iris makes an agreeing noise, tilting her head. “Well, my husband- though he wasn’t at the time- is the Flash. And he’s a speedster, and so he can create time remnants of himself. One of them was an anomaly and began to have thoughts, which time remnants aren’t supposed to have. He wanted to be the only Flash and thought that to kill me in front of Flash,”

Joss’s stomach turns, and she swallows.

“I’m sorry,” she says in a small voice, not able to make it go any higher. Iris nods.

“It’s alright. Just remember what I told you. I changed the story, I realised that I mattered, and in the end, I saved myself, and you need to do that, too,” she squeezes the Weather Witch’s shoulder and gets up to walk away. 

“Mrs West-Allen!” Joss calls. 

“Iris,”

“Iris, then. Why...why did you tell me this?” she asks. 

“Because everyone was so caught up in saving my life that no one told me that,” Iris gives her a small, pained smile. “So that’s why I told you. Now-“ 

The smell of ozone wafts up, and the sound of two men yelling as well as thunder and the scent of electricity wanders up shortly thereafter. 

“God,” Joss says, blinking innocently. “I wonder what that could possibly be,”

“I’m an investigative journalist, Joss,” Iris says, rolling her eyes. “It’s my job to look through bullshit people feed me,”

As she leaves, the Weather Witch sees a slight smirk on Iris West-Allen’s face and smiles herself, just slightly. 

And then she slowly gets up and clutches onto the railing as she follows. 

——

The whiteboard has been cleared of equations and instead, bold black marker states: SAVING JOSS’S LIFE. 

Joss has a green marker. Nora had handed it to her with a grin and an  _ ‘I just felt like this was your colour’.  _

Running is crossed off. She had said she didn’t appreciate that particular term, but Raya had glared until she went quiet. 

Raya had glared at her a lot, today. When she had come down to the cortex-  _ that’s what Nora had called it, right? _ \- she had immediately gotten into the fight with her dad and Flash, who looks  _ uncannily  _ young to have had Nora. Maybe he’s just, like, one of those people who don’t age,  _ whatever.  _ Joss doesn’t give a rats ass about the Flash, especially since he  _ left  _ her there to  _ rot  _ in the cell. 

Joss had said that exact line, and Mark had gone off his  _ shit,  _ until she said that he had no room to talk but she  _ understands _ that he has a history of walking out on her that Flash doesn’t, and he got really quiet. 

And here they were. Everything’s fine, sans the small electric burn in the corner from where Flash had begun to make a remark about Joss’s lineage. 

He had been cut off. Evidently. And then Mark had left, muttering curses about how he didn’t want to see Flash get Joss killed. Again, Joss didn’t say. 

“I’ve got a question, doc,” Raya says now, “Joss says she passed out yesterday. Why hasn’t she today?”

“Well, I’ve got a theory,” says Caitlin and suddenly, she goes animated. “So the loop  _ before  _ this one, you were stabbed, right? Well, my theory is you've fainted because every time you’re stabbed, it damages your organs and your body isn’t used to that. But when you’re choked or inhale noxious fumes, it doesn’t affect your organs.”

“Oh, that’s  _ so  _ great!” Joss says, her voice filled with faux cheer. “I’ll have to ask Cicada just to strangle me next time!”

Raya stifles a scoff, but Nora widens her eyes in a glare and Joss slumps down, biting the inside of her cheek, chagrined. 

“I mean, thank you,” she mumbles. What she’s thanking the doctor for, she doesn’t know, but it satiates Nora’s mood. 

“What else did you do?” Flash asks, pointing his red marker at Joss. The colour coordination nearly made her roll her eyes before remembering that they were helping her, and honestly, starting up that argument again would be more unpleasant than anything Cicada did. 

Well, okay,  _ less  _ unpleasant but only by a small margin. 

A very small margin. 

“Barricading my room didn’t help. I mean it kind of did, but he ended up just strangling me anyway, and  _ no,  _ I’m not gonna get locked in the pipeline.  _ For starters,  _ everyone left me last time because everyone thought that was the safest place I could be and he killed me anyway. Poison gas- what?”

Flash is frowning. “Nothing. It’s just, Cicada uses his dagger. It seems off that he strangled you rather than stabbing you in your sleep, or-.”

“Don’t you  _ dare  _ put  _ any  _ of that into the universe,” Joss says, scowling. 

She’s not the strongest believer in karma, but she’s not going to risk anything. She sighs, flicking her head to get a stray lock of hair out her eyes. 

“Continue,”

“I’ve got another question,” Raya says, cutting Flash off. “How the hell did Cicada know that you would be important to so many metas?”

“Well, we weren’t exactly private about the Weather Wizard being your dad,” Nora mumbles. “Joss, wait, you said Cicada got to you at S.T.A.R labs? How’d he even know?”

“I don’t know,” Joss shakes her head in frustration, “I mean, yeah, I have location services on, but the only person to have access to them is Raya so she can break me out if I get arrested again.”

“And we’re certain Raya’s not-” Nora starts and, as if sensing the Silver Ghost’s eyes burning a hole into her spine, doesn’t finish. A wise decision. 

“If it was Raya, she’d have killed me already,” the Weather Witch says. “So we don’t know who hired him  _ or  _ how he keeps finding me,”

She wants to throw the marker down in frustration, but feels it’s slightly too immature to have a tantrum. Fire still burbles up inside her anyway, scorching her insides and burning her torso. 

“This is useless,” she growls, placing the marker down on her knees. 

Nora stands up, only slightly too dramatic. “Okay, team!” she claps. “Let’s take five.”

She grabs Joss’s wrist and drags her into the hallway. 

“You’ll be okay,” she says, “okay? We’re going to help you. You don’t need to be scared anymore,”

“I’m never scared,” Joss lies, and Nora looks at her like she can see right through her bravado. “Nora? Why are you helping me?”

The hero stands up a little straighter, preparing to presumably delve into a speech, passionately laying out her heroic beliefs. The Weather Witch cuts her off. 

“If it were the  _ first  _ loop, maybe I would believe you, but it’s been eight loops and you’ve been...consistently kind in all of them. Too kind. But not fake. Like there’s something more going on,”

Nora smiles, both shy and an emotion Joss can’t pinpoint. “Hasn’t there been something more going on every time I talk to you?”

Well. 

That’s true. 

“And the reason I’ve been so nice to you is a. Because you asked me for help and I want to help you because you need it. Selfishly? It’s also because...I have a crush on you. I like you,”

“I’m your father’s worst enemy's daughter. I watched as Raya blew you up, I hit you with lightning, I-”

“You saved my life once, endangering your own life to help me. You gave me a second chance. You trusted me with your life and your secret. That night, when you iced the roads over, that’s when I started liking you. Fully. And then last night…” Nora winces. 

“What?”

“Well, there’s no easy way to put this…”

Burning crawls it’s way down the back of Joss’s neck. “Please tell me I didn’t try to have sex with you,”

“What? No, no, not at all. You, uh, you wanted to cuddle,”

This, unsurprisingly, does not make her feel better. “I’m a supervillain,” she whispers hopelessly in a tone that feels uncomfortably like she’s whining. “I don’t  _ cuddle,” _

She can see Nora try not to smirk, shaking her head solemnly. “Of course not,” she says loyally. “You’re a  _ very  _ good supervillain, too,”

She gives the speedster a half hearted glare. “I know what you’re trying to do,”

“I’m not trying to do anything,”

“ _ Nora,” _

She says it firmly but it’s not as hard as it could be. Damn  _ feelings,  _ making her _ soft.  _

“Well, in the much valued case of honesty, I like you, too,” Joss says, watching how XS’s eyes light up. “Maybe it started when you gave me a second chance...I think that’s when it started except I wasn’t aware of it, and it slowly hit me that I like you. I wouldn’t just ice over a road to save  _ anyone’s _ life,”

“So if you like me and I like you…” Nora trails off before grabbing both of Joss’s hands. “Do you want to go out with me?”

She stares down at their hands, linked together. 

“Ordinarily I would say yes,” she says in a quiet voice. “But Cicada’s murdering me and I just need to focus on that, so uh, rain check?”

She tries not to smirk at the unintentional pun, but Nora picks up on it and rolls her eyes, muttering something about  _ why am I so attracted to girls who have an awful sense of humour _ , despite the fact that her lips quirk up fondly. 

Joss ignores the eye roll. People who were pre-dating, she thinks, had to make compromises in what they complained about. And then the hero stands on her toes, and touches her lips to the Rogue’s cheek. All vague thoughts of arguing go out of Joss’s mind. It’s not so much a kiss, per se, as it is just a touch but it feels meaningful, and suddenly she can feel everywhere they’re touching, their fingers seemingly electric against each other- 

_ Electricity. Wait.  _

“That’s it,” she gasps. “Nora, what if we set a trap for Cicada? I mean, he didn’t know you were a meta in one loop…”

Nora’s eyes light up with realisation. “That could work! Should I bring in the cavalry, too?”

“Yes,” Joss nods, “you’re not gonna remember this, but one loop, you tried to protect me, I guess. He overpowered you and…”

“He killed me?” the hero asks, voice small. 

“What? No. He killed  _ me.  _ Because I convinced him not to kill you,”

“I’m sorry,” Nora whispers. “I just-  _ I’m  _ the city’s  _ protector-  _ well one of them anyway- and  _ I  _ should’ve protected  _ you,  _ not the other way around,”

“You tried to stop me,” Joss says, “I didn’t listen,”

“I have super speed. If I really wanted to, I could’ve stopped you,”

“I think that just would have made him kill both of us,” 

“You’re never gonna agree with me, are you?”

Joss shakes her head and Nora grins. 

“That’s okay,” she calls sweetly. “Because when we date, I’m probably going to get my way  _ allllll  _ the time,”

She raises an eyebrow. “You coming in?”

Joss hesitates and Nora shrugs, going in herself.

And then the Weather Witch grins nearly as wide as she’s seen XS smile.

\----

“So we’re gonna trap Cicada,” Barry- Nora had properly introduced them- says. Nora nods, letting her hand settle into Joss’s, who tries not to look down and smile.  _ There’s more important things to worry about,  _ she reasons _ , such as preventing your own death. _

It’s just them.  _ Even though  _ Vibe and Frost and Iris had offered, Joss wanted to reduce the number of possible deaths just to her and so, two speedsters.

“Yeah,” she says after realising she’s taken far too long to answer. “It’s the safest option,”

“Could’ve just let me run you to Coast City, but  _ noooo _ ,” Nora mutters. She’s smiling slightly though, and presses her fingers closer to Joss’s. 

“Where’s the best place for that?” Barry asks after clearing his throat, his eyes darting between Joss and Nora and their hands. 

“My apartment,” she says. “He knows where it is and he’s killed me there a few times, that’s where he would assume I would be,”

Barry nods, his jaw tensing. His eyes flicker with something close to anger. 

Why, Joss wasn’t sure. He must hate Cicada almost as much as she does. (She can’t imagine anyone hating him more than she does). 

“I don’t want you two to get hurt,” she says, “if anything happens to you and I live, the city…”

“We can worry about the city later,” Barry says, his jaw unclenching. 

“Right now, you’re the priority,” Nora says. Joss glances at her. Her eyes crinkle though her smile is small and something about it sets off sparks in Joss’s stomach. She smiles back, her fingers relaxing under Nora’s. 

“Okay,” 

“So,” Barry says, “what’s the plan? This is happening to you, you get to decide what happens,”

“Shit.” says Joss because honestly? She’s not much of a planner. The biggest plan she’s ever made was dropping that truck on her dad’s head, and look how that turned out. There’s a reason she hasn’t tried to overtake Raya for leadership and that’s because she hates planning heists- she’s more than willing to be told her role in the plan and pull it off. She panics in the face of sudden emergency. “Um, okay…”

Despite her own life being the crux of what they’re planning, her planning skills are just as rusty as they’ve always been. The most she can come up with on the spot is  _ why don’t you two run really fast and break his dagger? _

“That probably won’t work,” says Barry. “He can dampen our powers,”

“Oh, well!” Joss flings up her arms in a fit of dramatic hysteria that she thinks is fitting for the occasion, “I’m gonna go get ready to repeat this day until I die,”

“Hey,  _ hey!” _ Nora tugs her left arm back down. “That’s not going to happen, okay?”

For some reason, she believes the speedster. 

But only somewhat.

Still a lot more than she’s believed in anyone in a long time.

\-----

The plan is this: Joss will be bait (Nora had protested quite vehemently about this part) and will hold off Cicada until she can get to a safe position in which she will call Nora, without talking. Cicada won’t see it coming and can’t dampen their powers until he’s-

_ “Dead!” Joss blurted. _

_ “Arrested,” Barry said warily. _

-well, there was a slight difference in opinions of what they would do with Cicada.

_ Anyway.  _

She sighs, leaning back against the wall. 

Being bait was, well,  _ boring.  _ Especially when Cicada hadn’t shown up. An idea occurs to her as the midnight moonlight brightens the stairwell through the one window, tiny though it was. 

_ Guess we can add damaging private property to your resume.  _

_ Nora West, you’re a genius.  _

She slams the top of the weather staff through the window. 

_ Sorry. If the day resets, you’ll never even know I broke it.  _

The day’s not going to reset. She doesn’t know why exactly the universe is screwing around with her, and she will be damned if she gets killed playing bait. 

Especially if she has to admit it in the next loop.

Joss adjusts her weather staff and smiles as blue lightning sparks off the end. Despite the fact that the lightning would be weaker in here- the window has limited space to allow the power she utilised when stealing that A.R.G.U.S. car with Raya, or causing the power surge back when she was going to kill her dad. 

_ That  _ was a bad time in her life. 

She sighs, letting the lightning die down but keeping the tension in the shoulders, eyes darting to the door. 

Her phone buzzes in her hands, nearly causing her to jump. She nearly smiles at the sight of Nora’s name at the top of the message. She had impulsively added two heart emojis after the speedsters name, one purple and one yellow. If anyone asked, Joss would say that it was to remind herself of the CSI interns actual identity. Whether that would be a lie or not, she wouldn’t say, not even to herself. (And she would ignore the feeling in her chest and stomach and the heat prickling up her neck and the tugging at her mouth whenever she sees the hero.)

Nora’s sent,  _ I’ll save you. You won’t have to go through this again. Promise. I know it’s seriously unschway. But you got this. _

She’s signed it with a green heart that Joss tries not to look too far into. 

(Okay, maybe she’s already overthinking it but  _ whatever).  _

The door creaks open and it takes all Joss has not to roll her eyes. 

She knows these loops are pretty out of the ordinary but  _ must  _ everything be like something out of a D-list horror movie? 

Cicada pauses when he sees her and she pasted on her best smirk. 

“Yeah, I know about your... _ efforts  _ to kill me. And I just don’t think today is my day,” 

She sounds confident. Smug, even. She’s a pretty good actress. 

He keeps her gaze and unsheathes his dagger. Joss tries not to flinch, rolling the weather staff pointedly in her hand. Red sparks jump off it, as if it knows the gravity of her threat. And why wouldn’t it? According to Nora, meta tech is a part of the owner. 

She makes the first move, pulling the electricity in the air into the staff and firing lightning at Cicada. His eyes widen behind his mask and he quickly raises his dagger to bat the lightning away, destroying a wall. 

What the  _ fuck.  _ That was new but  _ not _ appreciated. 

Apparently the time for dramatic entrances was over- Cicada leaps up and lands in front of her. Swallowing every urge to run, Joss merely takes a cautious step back. Drawing on her faux confidence from earlier, she looks him in the eye.

“You think that’ll make me scared of you? I’m not afraid of anything,”

Her voice shakes and she sounds scared, even to her own ears. Damn it. His eyes gleam and she realises with a jolt that there’s nothing in his eyes but desperation.

Desperation is dangerous, more than anger and more than vengeance.

Desperation means there’s nothing left to lose and nothing more to negotiate. Joss would know, she was pretty desperate when she created the lightning tornado.

She takes another step back, raising the weather staff and forcing her hand to stop trembling and fires. 

This time, it hits. He growls, taking a small step back, shaking off the weak lightning hit.

He must be wearing something to protect him if that was the most a strike of lightning made him suffer. 

So he knows what Joss’s typical move is. And he’s come prepared for this, and her mind goes blank when she thinks of what other attacks she could use. She uses wind to cause him to back off, and grabs her phone. The emotion she feels causes her attack to weaken, and shortly after, the wind dies down and he snarls and grabs the weather staff. She grunts, holding on with a white knuckled grip, but he wrenches it free.

“Fuck,” she mutters as he throws it over the edge of the staircase. “Okay,”

He brings the dagger down and she twists out of the way, but due to all the times she’s died, she’s weaker and slower than normal. She dodges another two times, trying to reach her phone so she can call Nora, but then she lands heavily on her ankle and goes down.

Cicada looms over her and she whimpers, squeezing her eyes shut tight as the dagger descends down over her heart, and  _ oh God,  _ what if this was her last chance?

She prepares for the pain, sucking in her breath, and-

“Wait!”

This...isn’t part of the plan. Joss opens one eye. Mark Mardon is at the top of the stairs.

“I know what you wanna do. By killing her, you weaken me, right? Well, let’s make a deal.”

He steps in between Joss and Cicada. 

“If you kill me, now, I promise I won’t do anything to stop you.  _ However,  _ let her go. She’s human, not a meta. Okay? And then you’ll get what you want. The most infamous meta in Central City, dead.”

“Mark, what are you doing?” Joss hisses, curling her fingers in his jacket. She knows what he’s doing. It’s the same thing she did when Nora got hurt, two loops back. The only question is, why is he doing this  _ now _ ? 

Cicada hums, running his finger across the dagger. 

“Mark, no,” she says urgently, shaking her head though he can’t see her. 

“Joss, go. Get as far away from here as you possibly can,”

She knows what she’s about to say, panic and terror and confusion and frustration being the driving force behind her vocal cords. 

“ _ Dad.” _

He turns, and wraps one arm around her. 

“I love you, Joslyn. Okay? Always remember that,”

Too soon, he releases her, pressing his lips to her temple. 

“Very well,” Cicada declares. “I won’t kill her to get to you,”

He draws back his dagger and stabs Mark. 

“ _ No!” _

It takes Joss a moment to realise that the scream is ripped from her own throat, brutal and inhuman. 

She looks up at Cicada through eyes that have blurred with shock. “No-  _ no _ ,”

Mark hits the ground with a groan and Joss’s world shatters, everything she thought she knew about her and her dad goes up in broken glass. She pulls out her phone, frantically looking for Nora's number with shaking hands. 

“But then,” Cicada continues, mercilessly snatching his dagger back, “you’re not the only meta that would be affected by her death,”

“That’s not what we agreed on!” Mark chokes out. 

“But we did. You asked me to not kill her for you, and I’m not.” he gestures to her. “She’s...close with XS,” 

Joss pauses in scrolling for Nora’s phone number and glares, not appreciating the insinuation no matter how true it is. 

And then she presses the dial button. Nora’s fast, she can get here before…

Before she can get killed, before she can lose her dad forever. Everything will be okay. 

No matter how hard she thinks it, she never quite believes it. 

This is all becoming routine now and despite the fact that she can hear herself say  _ I don’t know how many second chances I have left,  _ she knows what will happen. She’ll die and then either she’ll stay dead or wake up weaker. 

Either way it’s no fun for her. 

Quickly, she glances back at Mark. Her heart clenches and her breath disappears from her lungs. What will she lose if she lives? She hates that thought, hates that she still wants her dad. Still wants to protect her dad. 

She folds her arms around herself, the conflicted thoughts in her head becoming overwhelming. On one hand, she had lost her father before she was even born. On the other, even after all she’d done to Nora, the hero had still given her a second chance.

And a third and a fourth and an infinite amount of chances, and while she knows he doesn’t remember from the last loop, she still gave her dad a second chance, inspired by the girl she likes.

If she leaves him here to die, will she be the same as him.

“Kill anyone else XS is close to,” Mark chokes out, his voice slurred, “not  _ her _ .”

Joss glances down at him. The thought of her dad defending her is... _ weird,  _ to put it lightly. She had always thought she would only have to defend herself because no one else would do it. But now there’s Raya and especially Nora and now her dad and maybe she’s not alone after all. 

“There is no one else,” Cicada says and plunges the dagger into her stomach. 

“ _ NO!” _

Joss looks down. Despite the pain, it’s familiar to her now and that scares her more than anything. Dying-- getting  _ murdered _ \-- shouldn’t be familiar. He wrenches the dagger back to his hand, and she gasps, tears in her eyes as she looks back up. Cicada’s already leaving as she falls.

Despite her quick blurring vision, she drags herself over to her father, burying her head in the crook of his neck and though it hurts, Joss doesn’t complain, instead letting her vision go dark as she pretends that this is all a nightmare but it’s okay because her dad’s there to help her. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise the next two chapters will be lighter!
> 
> Happy new years, and I hope all of you have a wonderful year!


	9. 9

Joss wakes up. Her phone is ringing, as always, so she guesses that it hadn’t worked. A quick glance at the device confirms her suspicions, and with a groan, she throws it into the bin across the room. 

“Uh...hey, you’re up?” Nora asks rather than says. 

“I’m gonna die,”

“It’s just a hangover,”

“No, Nora--” Joss rolls onto her side and then pushes herself up, “I’m literally gonna die,”

Nora raises an eyebrow. 

“You can’t drive because you’re XS, and contrary to your whole aesthetic, your favorite color is yellow,”

“That is…”

“The ninth time I’ve had to relive this fucking day,” 

The awe on Nora’s face melts to dread. “You said you were gonna die?”

“Cicada,” Joss sits up, groans as her head pounds and her stomach aches to the point where she can only see white for a moment. “My dad’s Mark Mardon and, well-“

“Me.” XS finishes softly, vulnerably. “Because of me,”

This is why metas are so hard to deal with. Always think everything’s about them. (Even Nora, though Joss is partial to forgiving her quicker than the other metas)

“Partially,” the Weather Witch reluctantly confirms, seeing Nora about to go into Sacrificing mode. “But not  _ just _ ,” 

She sighs, looking down at her hands. “It’s complicated, but at least I keep coming back, right?”

“Right,” Nora agrees, very hesitantly. Joss sighs, and stands up, walking over to the closet. 

Well, at least that’s what she intends to do. The second she tries walking, she sways violently. 

“Whoa,” Nora says, hands flying to the back of the Witch’s shoulder blade, “you okay?”

There’s the remnants of an electric shock where Nora’s warm fingers are touching her through her shirt and Joss realises she’d used her super speed to catch her. That was nice. Nearly made her smile. If it were any other circumstance, she probably would have. 

“Um,” Nora says, soft enough that one would have to strain to hear her. “So...what are you going to do?”

“We’ve done everything,” Joss says, just as soft. She notices, despite being steady, that Nora has yet to move her hands. “We’ve tried trapping him, we’ve tried hurting him, we’ve tried the S.T.A.R. Labs dungeons,” 

Reluctantly, the speedster pulls her arms back to her sides. “No, no, there’s gotta be something we could do,”

“There is. You’re just not gonna love it. In fact, I’m pretty sure you’re going to hate it,”

“What?”

“We do nothing. We let the day pan out as is,”

“And, what, just let you die? No,”

“Nora, when we’ve been trying  _ not _ to let me die, I die. At least I can be prepared this time,”

“Joss, I’m not going to give up on you,”

“You’re not the one whose organs have fucking holes in them,”

It’s quieter than she intends. 

“Okay, dying hurts and I don’t want to go through it anymore. At least, I don’t want to have hope. If I have hope, then it just hurts worse when I die,”

The speedsters face contorts in frustration. “There must be something we haven’t thought of. But Joss, don’t  _ say  _ that we’re not doing anything. We’re gonna save you.”

“You can’t,”

“Joss-“

“Just leave me here to die,” Joss says blankly. 

Nora scoffs. “You are unbelievable, you know that? What happened to the Joss who fought for me to believe she was innocent? Or the Joss who created a lightning tornado?”

“Cicada killed her, she’s dead,”

“ _ Bullshrap _ ! I want to help you, okay? But I’m not gonna sit here and watch you get killed because you don’t even try!”

“Nora...I  _ want  _ to try but I don’t know. I just think that I don’t have a lot of second chances left,”

Her head buzzes, and she can feel her heart beat faster...whether something’s wrong or it’s to do with Nora’s presence, she doesn’t know. 

“Every time I come back my body gets weaker.”

Nora looks concerned. “Is that why you said your organs had holes in them?” 

Joss nods despite the off feeling in her head, like it was empty and raw with adrenaline, covered in fuzz.

“What did you think I meant?”

“To be honest, I was thinking maybe you were being facetious,”

She wants to smirk but then realizes why she’s feeling off. 

“I’m pretty sure I’m about to faint,” Joss says, voice slurred. 

“What?”

“Yep,” she confirms as her vision greys, “ _ definitely  _ passing out,”

———

It was no surprise that Joss wakes up in S.T.A.R labs. What is surprising is she can’t find Nora. She’s about to get off the plinth and look for her when she sees a note. 

_ Hey, _

_ I went out to save Jitters from a thief. Be back soon. Don’t get up- you nearly hit your head.  _

_ Nora.  _

There was a scribbled heart next to the signature. Joss grins. All too quickly, she’s reminded of what happened in the last loop and her smile fades. 

God, her  _ dad… _

Her eyes blur with unshed tears and she folds her arms tightly, her nails digging into her forearms as the memory of her own screams deafen her. 

“Oh, you’re up,” Nora says cheerfully. “Oh-- hey, what’s wrong?”

“Cicada killed my dad,” Joss says, choking on the words as they come out. “In front of me. Nora, why would he...how…?”

She can’t quite pull the question out of her throat, but hopes Nora can piece it together. The speedster sighs, and the Witch can feel the weight on the plinth shift as Nora sits down.

“A month ago, now...Cicada broke my spine,”

Joss swallows back bile. God, she felt guilty about that one missile, the one that Raya had shot over a month ago...how could someone do that to Nora? Sweet, kind Nora who just wanted the world to be a brighter place? 

“I’m sorry,” she blurts.

“Don’t be,” Nora says softly, “it wasn’t anything you did, and besides, it made me stronger,”

“No, not about Cicada. I mean, yes, I am sorry about Cicada, but...I’m apologizing for how shittily I treated you when this whole thing started. I know you don’t remember, but I was pissed and I was...not in a happy place. I’m still not, but it’s better than before,”

“Joss, it’s okay,” Nora smiles softly, “honestly, if I got upset by the amount of times someone said something that upset me, then I wouldn’t be a very good hero,”

Her smile fades. “In those times...I didn’t treat you...not well in return, did I?”

Joss bumps their knees. “Honestly, Nora, I don’t think you're capable of nastiness. You’ve been consistently  _ nice  _ to me. That’s why you were the first person I trusted with all of this,”

Nora grins and bumps her knee back. 

“I promise, I’m going to stop being nasty. Starting today,” Joss says softly. 

“Well, I’ll hold you to that,”

The silence that echoes after is not uncomfortable. It’s almost peaceful. 

“Oh, by the way, after the Jitters villain, I got your clothes out of my room. I don’t know, I thought you might like to wear your own stuff,”

“Thanks,”

Just as she expects, the speedster pulls out her bracelet. 

“Help me clasp it on?” The Weather Witch asks, extending her wrist. To contain her butterflies when Nora brushes her wrist, she clears her throat. 

“So, uh, you stopped that criminal at Jitters?”

“Yeah. I didn’t even need the Flash’s help.” XS sounds proud of herself. It’s very cute. 

“Of course you didn’t. You’re the best hero in the city. Flash? Yesterday’s news.”

“Joss, that’s my dad!” Nora sounds like she doesn’t know whether or not to be offended. 

“Your point?”

“He’s a  _ very  _ good hero, do you know how many times he’s saved the city?”

“Do you know how many times he’s broken my windows?” Joss smiles, “besides, I happen to think  _ you’re  _ the best hero,”

“Well,  _ you _ could be a good hero,” Nora sounds almost deliberately absent minded. 

“Mmm, I’ll pass. I would be too jealous of your favorite villain otherwise,”

“Why would you be jealous of Spencer Young?” 

It takes a minute to click. 

_ Well, that’s offensive.  _

Nora laughs after seeing Joss’s face. 

“I’m kidding, c’mon, stop pouting. You  _ know _ you’re my favorite villain,”

“Yeah, well, I better be. I didn’t save your life for second best,”

XS clicks her tongue. “Thought you said you wouldn’t be nasty anymore,”

“Consider the offer revoked,”

It shouldn’t be this easy to talk to someone, to just relax with the knowledge that they weren’t a threat.

It is that easy, apparently.

\-------

Team Flash have a meeting.

“Alright, Joss, walk us through this,”

She sighs, uncapping her marker and starting to write on the board. 

_ Loop one. Surprise attack. He stabbed me when I wasn’t paying attention.  _

_ Loop two. Tried to fight him with my bare fists because I only realized the day and it’s events had looped while he was trying to kill me. Stabbed. Again.  _

_ Loop three. Barricaded myself in my room. Didn’t get stabbed! Got strangled.  _

_ Loop four. Tried to get out of town. Got shot. Raya died. Not a good loop.  _

_ Loop five. Tried to use staff. Killed Spencer (ACCIDENTALLY). Had my own weather staff knocked against my head  _

_ Loop six. He tried to kill Nora. Talked him out of it. He stabbed me.  _

_ Loop seven. Tried to lock me in the dungeons here. Gassed me.  _

_ Loop eight. Tried to trap him. It didn’t work. He stabbed me.  _

She hates the pitying looks she’s given. Really, she’s fine. She’s...well, no, she hasn’t been through worse but it was fine. 

“Wait, what happened to make the trap fail?” Cisco Ramon asks.

_ I love you, Joslyn— you’re not the only meta she’s close to.  _

“It just failed, okay?” she says, in a tone that almost comes out a snap. She turns her head so no one can see the tears stinging her eyes. 

_ Keep it together, Jackam.  _ When she turns back around, her voice is too steady. 

“Last loop my dad got involved and the plan failed,” 

_ Kill anyone else XS is close to. Not  _ her _.  _

He had tried to protect her for the first time. Maybe not for the first time. 

She sighs, “I need some air,”

“I’ll show you the balcony,” Nora immediately says. She stands, locking her fingers with Joss’s, leading her away from everyone. 

“Is that what you were talking to me about earlier?”

“He just stabbed my dad in front of me because he tried to sacrifice his life for me. Why would he  _ do _ that?”

Nora sighs. 

“I don’t know,” she says, reaching out to push some hair behind Joss’s ear. “I’ve given up trying to see any good in Cicada. Yeah, his niece got hurt but...he repeated the exact pattern with you and me and our fathers, making them watch as he hurt us,”

“Not Cicada,” the Witch says, “my dad,”

She sighs, “there’s a big difference between warning someone and sacrificing your life for that person,”

“Not when it’s your daughter,” Nora counters.

“Right, his daughter. Who he abandoned in the maternity ward,”

That in itself makes her feel a twinge of guilt. Okay, so she gets his explanation, and truth be told, would she have done any differently? Maybe not. 

But old feelings die hard, and when you’ve spent so long hating someone because they hurt you, deep in your gut like a punch to the kidneys where the pain never goes away, it’s hard tp stop. 

“You wouldn’t understand,” Joss says softly, turning away from Nora.

Under the balcony, the city swirls, like when oil disguises itself with rainbows and her stomach swirls in sympathy and she glances back to her speedster, who is still and thankfully not swirling.

“Maybe I would,” Nora says, “my dad left me when I was a baby, too,”

She sighs, her hands curling loosely over the iron baluster of the balcony, “and it was so hard because I was so angry with him, I  _ am  _ so angry with him, but at the same time...he’s still my hero. How do you reconcile those two?”

“You can’t. It’s like there’s two people. The person you think you know and the person they actually are, and maybe sometimes they intercept and the only one who gets confused is you,” Joss glances at her. “What do you think I should do?”

“I think,” Nora chews on her lip as she thinks. It takes all of the Weather Witch’s famed self-control not to glance down at them, not to think about what it would be like to press her own mouth- 

This is a very serious discussion. Joss can’t be getting sidetracked. 

“I think you should talk to him.” Nora says, blissfully unaware of where the Witch’s thoughts were headed. It takes a slight moment for her to remember what they were talking about, before she sobers. 

“What if I can’t forgive him?” Joss asks, her voice coming out a whisper instead of neutrally, like she’d wanted. Nora shrugs as if it’s that easy and maybe it is, at least for her.

“Then you can’t forgive him, but Joss, be honest. Don’t you think you owe it to yourself to at least try?”

The Witch presses her lips together, averting her eyes. “If I do that-- talk to him...will you be there?”

Nora’s just about one of the only people she trusts. Maybe the only person. 

XS nods. “Always,”

She nudges the Witch, “but, uh, maybe we should go back inside. They might be worried,”

“Lead the way, XS,” Joss says because she’s grown up enough that she can admit she’s cheesy around the cute girls she likes. 

\-----

If anyone notices the way Joss’s shaking fingers are clutched into Nora’s hand, they don’t say anything. Which is a good thing- she isn’t sure how many questions she can deal with before she goes full Weather Witch on the poor heroes. 

Surprisingly, there’s no more questions about her deaths. The answer is explained quickly- Iris West-Allen catches her eye and smiles slightly. 

“I can’t think of any plans,” the Witch says after surprising herself and smiling back. “So can we just...not do that for now?”

“I’ve got a question.” her favorite speedster says, sitting down next to Barry. “What’s so special about today?” 

“Well…” Joss says, mock seriously, “I don’t know if you know this, but I keep getting murdered.”

“That’s not funny,” Nora says. Discrediting her words, she looks down and tries not to smile.

Joss feels oddly proud of this.

“It’s also my birthday.” she admits. “Um. That’s probably not relevant, though,”

“Maybe it is. I mean, what if that’s the thing bringing you back?”

“Right. I don’t think so. I mean, my birthday’s have all been fairly terrible thus far. Why would this be any different? I mean, unless you’re referring to how I have to live this damn day until I take my last breath?”

Nora blinks. “We’re not gonna let that happen,” she says steadily in the wake of Joss’s growing anger. 

“Joss, listen,” Barry says. He has a look on his face uncannily similar to his daughter’s when she’s going to give what she thinks would be an inspirational hero pep talk. “I can only imagine what your life has been like, and I know you may not trust any of us, but we want you to help us stop Cicada. So far, you’re the only one who’s lived after an encounter with him-“

Joss raises an eyebrow. Barry winces. 

“Come back from the dead,” he corrects. “And…”

The Flash continues but the Witch has stopped listening.  _ Come back from the dead… _

This is gonna be the  _ worst.  _

“Nora,” she says, the anxiety tight in her voice, making it go a pitch higher. “Nora. I need you to find my dad and then I need you to take me to him  _ now _ ,”

Because she had come back from the dead, and when Raya had died, she came back but what if that was an abnormality in the bigger scheme of things? What if her father remained dead when she had too many questions for him? 

“Okay,” Nora says soothingly. “Okay, I will. Why don’t you sit down?”

“No, I need to sort this out-“

Her vision blurs and she’s just able to choke out, “ _ Nora _ ,” before she faints. 

——-

She wakes up, back on the plinth. This time, Nora’s lingering in the doorway. 

“Hey,” Joss says. 

“Hi,” XS replies, sitting on the edge of the plinth, just close enough that their separate energies collide and mix. “Um...Uncle Cisco found your dad by tracking the weather. Apparently he’s been making it rain since he escaped after Thanks…”

She trails off, apparently realising what happened at Thanksgiving and that Joss may perhaps not like to speak about it.

“Uh, anyway, as my dad’s gone to find your dad. I wanted to stay with you,”

She opens her hand. Joss nods, and puts her own in the speedster’s. Nora plays with their fingers to avoid looking at the Witch. 

“You had me worried, Joss, just fainting like that. Um. Aunt Caity tested you. And...it’s not good, you weren’t exaggerating when you said your organs were…”

“Punctured?”

Nora nods. 

“I should’ve done something before this point!” Frustration creeps into her voice. “I’m a speedster, a hero! And you…”

“I’m a criminal. A villain,”

“You’re human,” Nora corrects, her voice delicate as she glances down at Joss, “you’re everything that’s good about being human.”

“How?” Joss says, in the same low voice as Nora whispers in. Something shifts between them. 

“You make me wanna be a better hero,” her speedster says which isn’t an actual reason but then maybe it  _ is _ . 

“ _ You _ make  _ me _ wanna be a good person,”

Nora interlaces their fingers, and her golden gaze moves from Joss’s eyes to her mouth. She tilts her head and slowly moves forward. It’s gonna happen this time, she’s sure of it. Her eyes shut of their own accord, but she can still feel Nora’s free hand make its way to her cheek, the pads of her fingers stroking at the bone hidden inside skin, can still feel Nora’s breath, warm like the rest of her, and-

“Your dad’s okay, Joss,”

Joss’s eyes shoot open at Barry’s call. Nora’s do, too, before widening as she tries to scramble back at super speed and only really succeeds in slamming her temple against Joss’s, hard. 

“Ow!  _ God _ !”

“Sorry! Are you okay?”

“ _ Yeah _ , if you haven’t permanently maimed me,”

Apparently, this was enough for Nora to grin broadly. “Oh, good! You’re okay!”

Barry walks into the room at that moment, and Joss realizes he wasn’t even there at the time of the accidental injury. 

“He’s fine,” he says, a small smile adorning his mouth. 

“He’s okay? He came back, too?” she asks, focusing on the thing that mattered.

Barry nods. “I remember you said you needed to see him, so he’s here...we don’t want you to get sped around. With your injuries, I mean, and Iris- you know Iris, right? Nora’s cousin- said that you should at least have a warning before you see him,”

“Before you see anyone, drink this.” Caitlin says, bustling through the doorway in a way that Joss is becoming accustomed to. “I thought of it when I saw your tests, and there’s no disease that can be researched with what you’re going through- after all, we’ve never experienced someone coming back to life after getting murdered, no one has until now- but the closest is called bradycardia.”

Joss tilts her head.

“Your heart is too slow. And you have some of the symptoms, chest pain and fainting being the most extreme. Anyway, this is a mix of medications, I’ve researched them all and they don’t react badly to each other, this is just so you can speed up your heart, build up your stamina and at  _ least  _ speed up the healing of your organs,”

“Um, thanks,”

She’s never felt...like she had a group of people caring for her before. It’s nice, though, if a little too uncomfortably nice, like she’s in a therapy session.

She drinks the medicine, making a face and coughing at the bitter aftertaste, and yet stops herself from complaining. At least it’ll make her better. 

Ish. 

Better ish. 

She sighs, flicking her head to one side before a troubling thought hits her like a bolt of scarlet lightning. 

“Hey, uh, Caitlin? Can you do me a favor? Can- can you scan my dad? Before I see him? I just want to see something,”

Look, Joss’s not partially trying to avoid seeing Mark.

  
Well, okay, she  _ is _ , but she’s not getting him scanned just because she’s procrastinating. She has a theory, and if she’s right, it’ll change everything she would want to do.

She’s right. 

Her dad doesn’t have holes in his organs, not like her, but his spleen is slightly bruised. 

Right where Cicada stabbed him. 

So she’s not the only one who gets affected, even after the loops reset. Interesting. The knowledge just strengthens her determination not to let anyone else get hurt for her.

Nora squeezes down on her hand, reassuring and warm, and Joss smiles. It’s tight and closed lipped, but genuine all the same and she hopes Nora knows that. It makes something melt inside her, in a good way, and for just a second, she’s a bit more confident about seeing her dad at a time where there’s not a lot of risk to her life and talk to him about...everything.

In front of her...Nora. 

“You okay?” the speedster asks, as if she’s reading Joss’s mind.

“Me? I’m fine, never better,” she flashes a winning grin. She can almost hear the cliché noises that toothpaste ads have at their resolution when the actor smiles, showcasing unnaturally sparkly white teeth. 

From Nora’s concerned pout, she can see that she really doesn’t believe the Weather Witch. Which is reasonable. 

“Maybe I’m a bit nervous,” she admits. “But I still need to do this,”

Nora nods, leaning over and brushing her mouth against Joss’s cheek. “I know you’ve got this,” she whispers, her curls brushing the Witch’s cheek. 

She nods, swallowing slightly. 

“What if I can’t survive this loop?” she asks quietly, “I mean, I didn’t any other time. So don’t get surprised if I can’t this time.”

“Sounds to me like you’ve resigned yourself to your fate. Why don’t you change the day? In a big way. You’re no victim, Joss Jackam. So make him the victim,”

Joss nods, biting her lip in thought. 

\---

There’s silence for about fifteen seconds after Mark enters the room. Joss almost freaks out a couple of times. She likely would have freaked out after the first rush of nerves, were it not for Nora’s hand in her own, stabilising and grounding her. 

“So,” Mark says, “Flash told me a bit,”

“That Cicada’s killing me?” Joss asks, deciding to come out with it. If he doesn’t know, it’s a bandaid being ripped off. If he does, well, it’s nothing he hasn’t heard before.

“God, this is insane…” he murmurs, shaking his head, “I mean, thank God you’re coming back, but how?”

“This is Central City,” she raises an eyebrow, “speedsters grow like daisies here, every two years, there’s an explosion of...what was it you said, Nora?”

“Dark matter,” Nora says, helpfully. 

“Dark matter, and that turned you into a meta that can control the weather, and that gave me a weather staff, and you think someone coming from the dead is unusual?” 

Mark chuckles. “Good point,”

He sobers, “but seriously, I’m glad you’re alright,”

“I’m not,” Joss says, “um, every time I come back, I’m weaker. I don’t know how many more do-overs I’ll get,”

She grabs some of her scans and passes it to him, watching as he tenses, eyes going darker and hands going white around the scans.

“You know,” he says, voice deceptively calm but Joss can hear a tremor of anger behind the facade, “why don’t we make a plan? You get that dagger away from him, and I’ll do something I’ve always wanted to do and make a tornado inside him.”

“Can’t,” Joss says glumly, “he can just summon it back.”

“Plus,” Nora chimes in, raising an eyebrow at her, “I’m fairly certain doing that would kill him, and  _ that’s  _ illegal.”

“Who’s this?” Mark asks, jutting his chin at the CSI.

“Nora West. She’s been my biggest support this entire time,”

“West?”

It’s the same tone that he used when he was describing his plan to kill Cicada. 

“West. Any relationship to Joe West?”

“Oh! He’s my uncle.” 

Joss can absolutely pinpoint the moment where Mark registers what Nora had told him. Because it’s the same reaction she has when someone’s pissed her off. 

“Okay,” he says in a tone that implies that it, in fact, isn’t okay. “Could I-- Joss, do you mind if we talk, just the two of us?”

Nora glances at her, and she swallows in a breath before nodding. 

“Alright. I’ll be within yelling distance, so if you need anything…”

Joss nods and then smiles slightly as Nora kisses her cheek reassuringly, reluctantly untangling their fingers and leaving with a soft, lingering glance. 

“Joe West’s niece? Really, Joss?” he folds his arms, “I know you hate me, but…”

“What’s wrong with Nora?” 

“Apart from the fact that her family hates us, and that she’s very clearly the city’s new speedster, Impulse or something, and she’s the Flash’s daughter? What else could there be?”

“XS,” Joss says softly. 

“What?”

“Her name’s XS, not Impulse. Look, her codename doesn’t matter,” she shakes her head, “what, was Joe West behind your arrest, or something?”

“You don’t know, do you?” Mark sighs, “Joss, Joe West shot my baby brother. Your uncle. It...he didn’t make it. West was gonna kill me, too. If Flash hadn’t gotten to me first. Locked me in one of those 2x2 torture chambers for months on end and then tried to have me shipped off to God knows where. Now, I don’t think they are behind you getting killed, but…”

“But what?”

As if he can sense the danger in her tone, he starts backtracking. 

“Well, that Nora girl might care if you stopped coming back- you two looked cozy- but the rest? C’mon, Joss, you know they wouldn’t care. They’d just go on to the next problem,”

Joss shrugs, tilting her head. She can’t help the pang that erupts in her chest. Yeah, she’d kinda thought that would happen, but to hear it confirmed…

“So?” she asks, to disguise her sudden sadness, “how would that be any different from normal? I mean, do you think anyone would really care if I stopped coming back?”

His face contorts and for a second, he’s speechless. 

“How...yes, Joslyn, people  _ would _ care if you died,”

Despite his obvious anger and frustration, she scoffs in response, rolling her eyes. 

She has a  _ history _ of not responding well to anger. 

“Okay, I need examples,” she drawls. 

“ _ Me,  _ for one.” Mark scoffs, “you’re my  _ daughter _ , you  _ really  _ think I wouldn’t care?”

“ _ Would _ you?” Joss asks, folding her arms, “because the past 23 years haven’t exactly proven that,”

“I was a scared seventeen year old, Joss! Okay, yeah, it was a shitty thing of me to do, but it doesn’t mean I don’t care about you, that I don’t love you,”

She sighs, deflating. “I know. Trust me, that was made very clear in the last loop. But it’s so hard. Because I’m still angry that you left. And at the same time, I want what Nora and her dad have. Maybe not as heroic, but you know...and I want that with you, but I’m scared that I’m not gonna be able to look past my anger to get that,”

“I get that,” and at her incredulous laugh, “really. I do. I have...anger management issues. Might be genetic,”

“I wouldn’t say I have anger issues, like that,” Joss argues weakly. Mark raises an eyebrow. “Really, I wouldn’t. I mean, do I get angry? Yes. Is it often? Also yes. But is it an issue? No,” 

She looks up. He’s raised the other eyebrow. 

“My anger doesn’t matter,” she says hastily. He sighs. 

“I know you...probably don’t want to talk about this, but have you thought anymore about Cicada? What are you gonna do to him?”

“What can I do? It’s, like, everything I tried failed.” she blows a lock of her hair out her face, “what, do you have a suggestion?”

“I do. The way I see it, all of them? They won’t actually tell you this because it’s morally wrong, or something, but the only way to stop someone like Cicada? Kill him before he kills you,”

She snaps her eyes up, tilting her head. “Why are you so sure I’ll kill him?”

“Because you’re my daughter. You’re exactly like me,”

“That’s what mom used to say.” Joss admits, a familiar feeling of shame prickling against the back of her neck as she recalled the days of her “childhood”. “Don’t think she meant it as a compliment,”

“Well, take it as one. I saw it, when you broke into the meta-wing. I saw it when you were seventeen, too. You’re strong, you’re resilient. You’re not a hero because you can do what they won’t, and you should be proud of that,”

“You think I should be proud that you believe in me...to be able to murder someone?”

“Not someone. Cicada. I know you can kill him because I have first hand knowledge of what you’re like when someone wrongs you,”

Joss rolls her eyes, guilt tugging at her organs despite her outward annoyance. Maybe she had been a tad hasty with the whole Thanksgiving ‘he crushed me so I’m going to literally crush him’ revenge plan. 

“Beating him at his own game would feel nice,” she murmurs, “and I haven’t had an outlet for my rage in months,”

“Well, if violence is what you need to relax yourself, I’ll help you with that. After all, you have the perfect father to assist you with violent retribution,”

“Thanks,” she drawls, rolling her eyes again, but this time her lips tug up at the corners. He sighs, looking hesitantly at her. 

“Do you mind if…”

He extends an arm and she nods, shifting into his grip. The hug is a little stilted, a tad awkward but not too much. She slouches a bit, glad Caitlin isn’t here. She’s sure it can’t be good for her organs, but she doesn’t care. Mark almost nervously closes his fingers round her shoulder. She closes her eyes. 

“Dad?”

“Mmhmm?”

“I...I don’t wanna die anymore. I don’t wanna die for good and I especially don’t wanna die and come back only to die,”

His arm tightens, and she can feel his scowling. Contrastingly, his hand seemingly absently gently draws patterns on her shoulder. 

“We’re gonna find a way to save you, Joss.  _ I’m  _ gonna find a way to save you,”

She nods, despite having heard it all several times over before she bites her lip as another thought comes to her. 

“If the day resets, then that’ll mean you’re gonna lose your memories of this loop.”

“Joss, I-”

“It’s not fair,” Joss says quietly. “We’re just starting to know each other, and I’ll die and the day will reset, and you won’t remember any of this. All you’ll remember is that I’m your evil daughter who hates you enough to kill you,”

“You’re not evil,” Mark says, just as soft. “I’ve seen evil people, and sorry, Joss, you don’t come close. You’re better than I am, I’ve known that for years. As for me not remembering it, that’s fine. You can keep making me remember,” 

She nods, letting go of her cautions and letting her head fall on his shoulder. His hand freezes for a moment, almost in shock, before he continues. 

It’s nice, and Joss can’t help but think that maybe had she let go of her anger just a little, she could have had more of this before.

\----

Despite the circumstances of the day, Joss still has no plan. 

Well, that’s what she told Nora at least. There is one rattling around in her brain.

_ Kill him before he kills you. _

Yeah, easier said than done. He has a hugeass dagger and she has quite literally nothing. The only way to make it work would be for her to somehow get the dagger away from him and use it on him. 

Which she isn’t not okay with- she still remembers how he used her own metatech to kill her and turnabout is fair play, after all.

So how to get his dagger away from him?

Her pondering quickly diminishes after she hears the door open. She knows it’s him. No other sane person would try to make themselves sound like an E-list horror movie. He stops when he sees her.

Joss smirks tauntingly, raising an eyebrow, not saying anything. Her fists curl so tight, she can feel the imprints of her nails in the flesh of her palm. 

He takes one deliberately slow stair, as if daring her to run. She stays put, despite her instincts telling her to run. 

“I have to say, when people told me about you, I was expecting something...well, not quite so  _ boring _ ,” she rolls her eyes exaggeratedly. “I mean,  _ what?  _ You remember that speedster dressed all in black?  _ Quite  _ a bit more intimidating, and I heard he was saying things that would not sound out of place from an emo fifteen year old boy,”

Perhaps she shouldn’t be taunting the person who’d killed her eight times, but unleashing her anger, if only a handful of it, felt good. While she’s been talking, he’s been headed up the stairs and she can see the anger burning in his eyes. 

Her mirth dies in an instant and she narrows her eyes, challenging. She’s ready, this time. Unless of course someone bursts in and demands Cicada take their life instead of Joss’s. 

She refocuses. One of the perks to reliving her murder eight times is that she’s become familiar with where Cicada will swing next, so she frustrates him by continuously dodging his swings before they even come close, eventually finding herself in a place where she can go on the offense, and she swings her leg out, catching him in the ankles and sending him sprawling back down the stairs. He groans, struggling up. 

Joss quirks a brow, heart racing. She’d hurt him. Maybe now he’d move on to his next target, and she could live to see tomorrow-

Nope. 

He jumps up the stairs, blocking her way. She’d sort of forgotten he could do that. He swipes faster, more angrily, at her and she’s only just able to dodge out of the way. This is new territory. In all the other loops, he’s been more controlled. She has a sinking feeling the day is gonna loop. Again. 

He juts the dagger at her chest and she twists sideways, only for him to stab it in her stomach, letting go and breathing out in satisfaction.

Joss gasps in pain, staring down at the dagger, lodged in her stomach. Without warning, Nora’s earlier words come back to her.

_ Sounds to me like you’ve resigned yourself to your fate. Change the day. In a big way. _

She glares at Cicada, a sudden burst of adrenaline going through her, grits her teeth, and yanks the dagger out.

“Fuck!” she cries out before she can stop herself. It hurts. She knew it would hurt, obviously, she’s not an idiot, but she didn’t know how much it would hurt. Before she can second guess herself, she stabs the dagger into Cicada’s chest. He screams in pain and she tries her very best to smirk vindictively. 

“That’s right,” she says, but her voice is coming out slurred from blood loss, “if I’m going down, you’re going down with me, asshole,”

He has a look on his face that reads quite clearly that maybe he picked the wrong target for his meta-rage. 

Her eyes roll back and she falls, but through it all, she feels a feeling of triumph. She’s  _ hurt  _ him. And that just gives her more ideas for the future loops. For the first time, she feels like she accomplished something in death. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter marks 4 chapters to the final! As always, please let me know what you think of this chapter. I would love to hear your thoughts, and see you in two weeks with chapter 10.


	10. 10

Joss blinks twice before sitting up. And then the memories hit her, and a rush of adrenaline sparks like flames through her entire body. She’d done it. She’d hurt badly, if not killed Cicada. Granted, she herself died in the process, but  _ anyway.  _

“Oh, hey, you’re up-“ Nora says, and Joss’s heart squeezes pleasantly and she leaps up, uncaring of what it could do to her, uncaring of the pain shooting through her gut like lightning, and wraps her arms around Nora, who stands stiffly for a moment before somewhat awkwardly patting her on her back. Joss almost spins her in her excitement. 

“Nora--  _ Nora _ , I did it! I hurt him!”

“Wait, what?”

“You said who I shouldn’t be, and it inspired me! Look, I would have died otherwise so thank you,”

“You’re welcome?” Nora asks. “I mean, you probably wouldn’t have died- you’re  _ Joss Jackam _ , but I wouldn’t have wanted anything bad to happen to you,”

“My hero,” Joss says teasingly, pulling back without letting go completely. 

“I, uh, guess that’s one question answered,” XS manages, her cheeks red but she looks happy. “I wasn’t sure if you remembered who I was,”

“You’re  _ Nora _ ,” Joss grins over her shoulder as she opens the closet. “I remember  _ you _ ,”

She grabs out her jeans and hesitates over her shirt. 

“Can I keep this? Just for now? I promise I’ll give it back, it just...feels nice,”

“Okay?” Nora says, bewildered. 

“Thank you!”

After she finishes putting her shoes on, she impulsively kisses Nora’s cheek. 

“I have to go, but meet me at Jitters? In three hours?”

She’s just about out the door when she remembers, and swings back around. 

“Oh, and let me know where you find my bracelet! Thanks, Nor,”

———-

Raya’s given her weirded out stares ever since she sat down, but she only starts the interrogation after she’s finished her Zoom coffee. 

“Well,  _ you’re  _ happy. Any reason-“

“Her name’s Nora West, she’s a CSI intern, she has this hair that’s in between caramel and chestnut, and her eyes are, like, this goldy brown colour, and no, we haven’t done anything,  _ but  _ if I make it out of today, I am  _ definitely  _ rectifying that situation,”

Raya widens her eyes in alarm. Joss smiles wider. 

“Nora, huh? Any chance she’ll go rogue and join us?”

“Nope,” Joss says cheerily. “She’s one of those  _ hero  _ types, she wouldn’t change,”

Not that she would want the speedster to. She quite likes Nora just as she is. 

“And what about you?”

Raya’s tone is careful, sticking the dagger in a non-lethal point. She eyes Joss just as warily as she had when she had practically skipped over to their table.

“Would you change, for her?”

Joss thinks about it.

“No,” she eventually says, “not only ‘cause she wouldn’t want me to, but also because I don’t want to change. I made my terms in joining the Young Rogues, and you agreed, and I’m happy here,”

Somewhat. But that mostly had to do with Spencer and Brie’s attitudes. 

Who were mostly responding to her attitude.

Still, apologizing to Spencer is where Joss draws the line. Maybe she’ll get her a Jitters gift card. That was apology enough, right?

Whatever, it had to be.

“Spaced off?” Raya teases. “Don’t tell me you  _ daydream  _ about Nora, too.”

“And if I do?” Joss grins. “Mmm?”

“Ugh. What  _ happened  _ to you?”

“I died,” 

Raya looks alarmed.

Perhaps that could have been said in a slightly less cheerful tone. 

“Look, I know you probably won’t like her, you have your own reasons for hating law enforcement and Nora is...a CSI, but I really like her, so…” 

She shrugs exaggeratedly. 

“Relax, Joss,” Raya rolls her eyes, “I’m an adult woman. I would never try to interfere with your love life,”

“You tried to hit XS with a car because she gave me that speech, about not being a criminal,”

“Well, yeah, that was ‘cause she was messing with  _ my _ love life,”

Joss chuckles, looking down so Raya can’t see her rolling her eyes. 

“If she’s good for you, I’m happy. You know that?”

“Yeah, I know that,” the Witch says, fondly smiling. “You’re my best friend, Raya. You know I would do anything for you.”

“Ok- _ ay,”  _ Raya drawls, raising her eyebrows in marginal surprise. “Since when do we do—all that?”

“Since today,”

“Well, not that  _ I’m  _ fond of sentimental value, but…” Raya smiles, thin and yet real, “I would do anything for you too. I guess you’ve grown on me,”

“Wow, thanks.”

It’s softer than she’s used to, voice underlaid with happy giddiness rather than bitter nastiness, for once feeling gently  _ content  _ rather than feeling the sick satisfaction of being able to hurt someone worse than she felt.

It’s a nice feeling. Calming. More freeing than when she was in the arms of a storm, the wind ruffling her hair and stroking at her cheek. 

But only  _ just  _ more freeing. 

“Joss,”

Joss beams, twisting herself around. Nora West looks happy, if a bit awkward to be  _ visibly  _ talking to two supervillains. 

“Nora!” she says, calmly standing up. The speedster takes a tiny step back at the rate she bolts to stand. 

“Uh, hey. I found your bracelet. It was in the bottom of the wardrobe, under your shirt,”

She reaches into her shirt pocket, which is highlighted by a rainbow— which is so  _ cute,  _ what the  _ fuck _ ?

Joss tilts her head, still smiling, ignoring Raya’s choking on her own Zoom. 

“Thanks,” she says, not  _ breathlessly-  _ she’s not  _ that  _ cheerful- but also not at its usual tenor, “help me clasp it?”

The swell in Nora’s throat moves as she swallows, nervous. 

“Sure...yeah,” she says, low and soft. Warm hands brush Joss’s wrist as cold metal snaps into place, and as always, she’s amazed by the difference between Nora and everything else in her life. 

Nora drops her hand to her side after clasping the charm bracelet. The Witch studies the hero as the sun reflects on her through a window, making XS’s features turn golden and she tucks her hands into the pockets of her bleached denim jacket, and Joss gives into her impulses and leans in, slowly, because if Nora doesn’t want this, then…

Nora meets her in the middle, fingers tangling with Joss’s own

It’s sweet, it’s like Nora’s kissing her like she’s made of the most breakable glass and shattering her would be the most devastating thing that could ever happen. And it’s over both too quickly and too slowly, like Joss is drowning and being brought up for air at the same time, like the times where she’s on the brink of being brought back from the dead but still hasn’t woken up. 

Her speedster pauses, and looks up through long lashes, blinking a few times as if making sure that what happened was real, and not for the first time, Joss is reminded of a hero, and then XS grins widely, tilting her head in eager curiosity. 

“What was that for?”

The Witch feels her face melt out of its perpetually tense state as she replies teasingly. 

“Tell you what. If you remember this tomorrow, I’ll tell you,”

“I have somewhere I need to be right now, but...take me out for dinner? For my birthday?” Joss bites her lip to contain her grin and then decides  _ fuck it  _ and tries to match Nora’s own, watt for watt. She doesn’t think she quite succeeds but that’s okay. 

“What, is this a set up?” 

“I wouldn’t do that. Don’t overthink this, XS,” she winks. “Just say yes,”

“Text me when you’re finished with whatever you’re doing,” Nora says, her voice soft. Joss nods, and prepares to leave when XS stands on her toes and leans in to kiss her cheek. 

“And good luck,” she murmurs. 

Joss swallows and nods, her good mood only diminished a tiny bit by nerves. 

——-

It takes fucking  _ forever  _ to find it.

Well, okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. It took more like thirty one minutes with a coffee break, and the coffee shop was crowded and she took her time ordering and drinking. 

So in all honesty, without the coffee break, it might’ve taken like. Fifteen minutes. 

Whatever, she’s  _ nervous _ , okay? 

She stands outside, clenching and unclenching her fists, watching her knuckles go white with tension and then, as she unclenches, the white fades and redness blossoms under her skin. She’s sure the palm of her hand is marred by the deeply set half crescents that are her fingernails. She doesn’t know why she hasn’t fainted yet. Maybe the thing Caitlin Snow made her take is stopping her from passing out.

Joss has to write her a thank you note once this whole thing is over. 

The apartment door swings open before she even has to knock. 

Mark Mardon looks surprised to see her, his brow furrowing and opening his mouth several times before he can even talk to her. It was odd. Julie Jackam had always said that nothing Joss could ever do could remove the image of her father, tarnishing her every movement. But she looks nothing like him. His pale skin to her light brown, auburn hair, slick and straight with gel versus dark brown curls. She remembers how when she was fifteen, she stole a box of hair dye from the corner store and dyed her hair scarlet. It didn’t really suit her but she loved the way it made her feel: fearless, not like the child who clung to any hint of affection that should come her way, not like the child who was so  _ bad,  _ so temperamental, and so...well,  _ Mardon  _ that nothing she tried to do differently ever worked to stop people from leaving her. So she embraced it, the fearlessness and the bloodthirstiness, all symbolised even if only to herself by her hair.

She cried when the last of the scarlet dye faded and resolved to do whatever it took to get that feeling of power back.

Even now, her hair is still streaked with blood and gold. 

“Joss,” he says eventually, his voice sounding breathless, like he’s been hit in the gut. Just like when she was sixteen. 

And just like when she was sixteen, Joss smiles weakly. “Hi dad,”

——

Mark Mardon’s apartment is uncannily like hers, messy and small and cluttered and safe. There’s no couch, no seats, just a bed and a closet and an almost empty stack of shelves and a chest of drawers. At least hers looks less like a hotel room, with photos she took of Raya and of her and even some of Brie and Spencer, but only just. The main difference is- aside from décor- that he has liquor bottles upon every shelf and surface which is. Concerning. But if she asks or says anything, he might go again, and she’ll be left with nothing but  _ almosts  _ and  _ maybes  _ and she can’t go through that again, it would break her faster and into more pieces than Cicada’s breaking her. 

“You said you wanted to tell me something,” Mark prompts about two and a half minutes later, and apparently, that was all she needed to open the floodgates. 

“This day has always been so hard for me, and especially now, it is literally killing me, and I was thinking, what if the reason I’m being murdered isn’t because you’re a meta, or the girl I like is a meta, what if it’s just because I’m  _ that  _ much of an asshole, and I guess, when you relive the same day ten times, you start thinking of who you really are,”

“Joss,” Mark says. He looks confused. “What- can you- murdered?”

“Oh, right,” she says. “Cicada’s been killing me. And every time I die, the day resets itself. Which is good, I don’t wanna die for good. But it’s been slowly killing me, it’s been slowly destroying my organs. And I don’t know how many more loops I have left, so I need to tell you this now,”

She takes in a breath, and looks down at her lap to avoid looking at him. 

“I don’t hate you. I  _ can’t  _ hate you. I’ve spent so long hating you that I’ve forgotten who I was before. I’m sorry for trying to kill you,”

She dares a glance up. He’s softened. 

“We can talk about that later. Right now, I’m more worried about you. Cicada’s been...hurting you?”

She nods, swallowing a snarky remark. “Yeah, and it’s  _ so _ shitty and I hate it, but this time, I have a plan. Dad, I don’t want to talk about Cicada anymore. I just...can I just get to know you? I mean, I don’t even know anything about my  _ dad _ ,”

She can see him swallow. 

“...sure, yeah,”

She folds her arms tightly, not knowing what else to do, and he sucks in a breath.

“What?” she asks. 

“You kept the bracelet,” he says, his voice coming out a whisper instead. Joss reddens. “The one I gave you.”

“Yeah,” she says softly, swallowing her knee-jerk instinct to deny it. “I kept it,”

“Would’ve thought for sure you’d bin it, after…”

“Everything,” she finishes, “I don’t know why I didn’t. I think it’s because I wanted hope that...that maybe someone cared about me,”

She sighs, running a hand through her hair despite the fact that she knew it would be mussed on her date with Nora later. 

“It’s stupid. I guess,”

“Course not. You have half my genes, and I’m willing to bet that said genes went into your personality, not your looks, meaning that nothing you do could ever be stupid,”

“And we were having such a nice moment before you ruined it, too,” she sighs, theatrically, before sobering. “Tell me about Clyde?”

He freezes in place. “How...how do you know about Clyde?”

“This is going to sound insane, but this isn’t the first time I’ve lived this day. And on one of the days, you said Joe West killed Clyde?”

“That’s-“

“Before you say impossible, may I just remind you that both of us can control the weather?” Joss tilts her head, trying to be as condescending as she can. It’s hard, when he’s nearly a foot taller than her. “It’s Central City, dad. Nothing’s impossible here,”

He nods, accepting what she’s said but not necessarily agreeing. 

“Look, dad, can we not talk about me dying?” she sighs, blinking as her eyes widen, as if sensing that she’s requesting something. “Just...I just want to know my  _ father _ ,”

He flinches, as if she’s dragged him and forced his arm down on a boiling surface. “Joss, I…”

“We met for a  _ year  _ when I was  _ sixteen _ . Was Clyde alive, then?”

He sits down, on his bed, inclining his head as a message for her to sit, too. 

“Yes,” he sighs. Joss feels her heart fracture, just a tiny bit, like the cracked earth on a desert. She could have gotten to know more of her family, she may not have heard about him before it was too late for her to meet her uncle?

“Why?” she whispers, unable to pitch her voice higher.

“I loved my brother. I did, I still do. But...you know how our family has a temper? Clyde had it worse than me. And I was going to create a tsunami to destroy the city.”

He glances at her. “After making sure you weren’t anywhere close to it.”

“Why?” Joss asks. Maybe she’s been seeing Nora too much, but the thought of destroying the city, destroying everything, made her...uneasy.

“Joe West killed Clyde, so I was going to make him watch as his daughter died,” he looks away, nearly shyly, “I knew how much it would kill him to have his daughter used against him, from personal experience,”

She was not going to be swayed by that. She was made of firmer genetic material, thank you very much. (Even though some of the ice protecting her heart melted.)

“Can we just go back to the part where you were going to kill everyone?”

“Not you,” Mark says defensively. “Look, Joss, before I continue, I need you to hear this. I would kill or torture or hurt a lot of people. I would never harm you. And I wouldn’t have ever harmed Clyde. Because the two of you were my family, my blood, and I could give less of a fuck if the city went up in flames, just as long as you were safe. Okay?” 

She nods, eyeing him. “Okay. Continue,” 

“Clyde was angrier than me. And he was a lot like you,”

She furrows her brow.

“Smart. Sweet to only a select few. A tad ruthless. And with less common sense than my favourite leather jacket,” 

“I have a lot of common sense!” Joss protests, offended. 

He looks at her, pitying. “Joss, I’m your dad, and you have no idea how proud I am of you, and I respect you enough to tell the truth. You do  _ not _ ,”

She scowls, deciding to ignore it for now. 

“Clyde also had a god complex and a jealousy problem and he was...excited to begin his career,”

“His  _ criminal _ career?”

He frowns. “Don’t judge. We weren’t doing it for shits and giggles. Our parents left me with Clyde when I was ten-  _ yes _ , I see the irony in that,”

“I get it,” Joss says, softer than she expected. “I don’t think I can forgive you. I don’t think that’s ever going to happen, I’m too hurt and too much damage has been done,  _ but  _ I want to move forward.”

He nods, solemn, before bumping her. 

“So. Your turn. Cicada’s been killing you?”

It all spills out. From the first time she got stabbed to the last time, where she ripped the dagger out of her stomach and stabbed him in the heart. 

She’s not sure when she starts shaking, but startles when he puts a hand on her arm, his eyes full of regret and concern. 

“God, I’m so sorry, baby girl.” he says, soft, and she doesn’t know how it happens, but somehow she’s got her arms around his neck and is sobbing into his shoulder, because this whole situation is so fucked up. His arms are tight around her, one hand at the base of her skull, the other on her back, pressing so tightly it kind of hurts. 

“God,” she mumbles when she releases him. He keeps his hand on her back until she can calm down enough to speak coherently, “d’you know what the most fucked up part is? There’s no way for me to get to his dagger if it’s not stabbed inside me,”

Mark frowns, and she can almost hear him get an idea. 

“Wait.” he says, “Joss. Do you know how to make hail?”

“No. I know how to do storms,” Joss looks down, suddenly shy. “I love storms,” she explains needlessly. 

“Joss, let’s talk about storms after you live through this day. Hailstones,”

“It’s nearly impossible for me to make them. I’m not like you, I can’t just...make things appear out of thin air. It has to already exist. Like when I do lightning, I use the electricity already in the air. When there’s water on the road…”

“You use your staff to freeze it.” he nods, thoughtful. 

“And I’ve tried water in my hands…” she winces. “Before...the  _ Hummer Incident.  _ I nearly froze my hands for  _ good _ ,”

“We’re not doing that, then.” he says, immediately. “Look, we’re gonna figure out a way for you to make hail. It’s so easy to torture someone with, so you can learn exactly who let Cicada know about you,”

“I dropped a truck on your head, and you’re showing me how to torture someone? Doesn’t that kind of sound dangerous for you?”

He shrugs blithely. “Figured that was more of a cry for attention than anything. ‘Sides, I’m here now, right?”

“Yeah.” Joss nods before clicking open her phone, despite having no idea how to google what they’re looking for. “Who  _ did  _ you torture with hail?”

“Flash, mostly.” he grins. “Though I heard  _ you  _ were the one who managed to end his life,”

Joss shifts. She hopes Nora forgot that particular piece of history. 

“Speaking of the Flash,” she begins nervously, “there’s something I need to tell you. Uh, I don’t know how to say this but…”

Mark has a look of realization cross his face. “I completely get it, Joss. don’t worry,”

“...you do?”

“Mmmhmm. I mean, I should’ve known. You want someone fast on their feet, someone loyal, smart, who cares about innocent children…”

“Yes!” Joss blurts, “exactly!”

“...and he’s my enemy, so I get it, really. But, Joss, he’s married, and-”

“What!?” she shakes her head, “what are you talking about?”

Mark looks confused. “...your crush on the Flash?”

She feels bile pool in her throat. “What? No, no, no. No.  _ Ew.  _ He’s  _ your  _ age. Ew. I’m going out with his… _ protege _ . XS.” 

“Oh,” he breathes, and then his eyes widen, “ _ oh _ .”

“Yeah,”

“Nora West? Like Joe West?”

“Nora is innocent,” Joss shakes her head, wondering how he knows about her hero’s alter ego. Then again, she sometimes kicks herself for not realising- it’s not the most  _ effective  _ disguise, after all, “like. The most innocent. Dad, she makes up words so she doesn’t have to swear. Just cause she’s Joe West’s niece doesn’t mean she’ll do the same thing to me,”

He looks away. “Still,”

“She’s saved my life, dad, she didn’t have to. But she did,” she sighs, “look, I’m not asking your permission or some antiqued shit like that. What I am asking is that, if things become serious, you give her a chance?”

“If it wasn’t you asking, I would have used my powers on you.” he growls in frustration after a minute, “but… you’re my daughter. So I won’t kill her on sight,”

“That’s all I’m asking,” she suddenly frowns. “How’d you know about Nora?”

“Watched your trial,” he shrugs as if it’s nothing. 

With all the wisdom that came from being a self-taught expert in meteorology, Joss widens her eyes and says, “oh,”

He sighs, nudging her shoulder. “C’mon. Let’s find a way for you to torture Cicada,”

About fifteen minutes later, they have a frankly  _ ingenious  _ idea. If water can be frozen, then  _ surely  _ soapy water can be frozen. 

It takes another twenty minutes to get to Young Rogues HQ and take her staff, and another two minutes to teleport back, this time entering the community bathroom than his apartment. 

“I got it!” she announced, quite clearly displaying that she has, in fact, got it. 

“Okay,” Mark says, stepping away from the sink, before twisting his hand. The door handle freezes shut. “Show me what y’got.”

She inhales, looking down at the abundance of soapy bubbles and squeezes her staff tight. 

The bubbles freeze over, and in accordance to her staff, rise. And then with a shout, Joss hurls them toward the bathroom door. 

The soap bubbles shatter, but so does the ice covering the door handle, and parts of the door, wood splintering around them. 

“Oops,” 

And then Mark grins at her excitedly and pulls her into a hug. 

“You made hail for the first time!”

“Kinda!” Joss corrects, but she’s grinning too widely for the words to land impact. 

It’s kind of nice, to be able to hug her father when she’s not hysterically wailing. When they pull back, she nearly bounces excitedly on her toes, unable to help herself. 

“Can you teach me how to make acid rain?  _ Ooh,  _ and for the next step in this, how about a hailstorm? And I saw a YouTube video of you flying, can I do that, and-“

“Okay, kid, slow your roll! Let your old man catch up,”

He grins before looking at her calculatingly. “Tell you what. I’ll teach you how to make any kinda weather change you don’t already know how to do. If you teach me that little lightning tornado trick. Oh, and that teleportation thing you do with lightning. Deal?”

Joss narrows her eyes suspiciously. “Why do I feel like you’re gonna use the lightning tornado for nefarious purposes?”

“What, me?” He widens his eyes in faux innocence, and she rolls her own eyes, despite the fact that her eye sockets are starting to get sore and tired by how much she’s doing that. She’s learnt that trick  _ ages  _ ago, thank you very much, and she’s honed it better than he ever could. 

“I’m probably gonna regret this. But deal,”

He softens, and reaches down, tucking a lock or dark hair behind her ear. 

“Definitely the worst year, but...happy birthday, baby,”

She tries to smile. It’s a bit watery. This is all she’s ever wanted, her whole life. 

“Thanks, dad,”

———

Joss gets changed before her date with Nora. This is mainly because her S.T.A.R. Labs shirt is sticking to her body, sweat and water soaking it through. 

There may have been more attempts to make hail. After she accidentally, exhausted, brought down her staff too early, she bought the hail down on herself and they called it quits. She now rests the weather staff against the wall before sighing and glancing at her reflection. There’s red marks all over herself that, if she has a tomorrow, will bruise throughout the week.

Which begs a different question: what if the day loops and she remains stuck with bruising? No. She has a date she needs to dress for. Fortunately, the redness limits any dithering: they had to have long sleeves because Central City is  _ freezing  _ and also because she doesn’t want to have to explain to Nora why she has hail shaped marks all over her arms and legs, because then she’d have to explain Cicada and time loops and…

Joss just wants one night where she can be herself, without all the doom that clashes from the past to the present, and she doesn’t want Nora to stress herself out, worrying about the Witch.

_ Change the day. In a big way.  _

Not making a plan to stop Cicada would be changing the day. 

Going on a date with Nora West would be changing the day. 

With this resolution in mind, Joss heads over to her closet, dark eyes scanning for long sleeves. 

——

Joss had been a little afraid Nora would take her to Jitters- to her dismay, she’s growing tired of the place. But no, it’s a small restaurant, that according to Nora,  _ wa- could be  _ totally _ schway in the future, Joss, just trust me.  _ She can’t look it up, see reviews, because she accidentally left her phone on her charger before coming, but she doesn’t even need it, she has Nora.

“I’ve never heard of this place before,” she says, glancing around. 

“It’s where my dad took my mom for their first date,” Nora laughs a little. “Mom told me that he was so nervous, he booked the whole place out and maxed out his credit card so he could spell her name out with her favorite type of roses,”

“Sounds romantic,” Joss says, nearly wistful. She’s pretty sure the most romantic her parents ever got was when they conceived her. And even then… 

“It is. It was. I wish I could go back in time, see them falling in love,” XS says. “Maybe they could’ve given me some pointers,”

“Well, you’re doing a great job on your own,”

“Thanks.” she grins. “What did you do, after Jitters?” 

“I saw my dad,” Joss says, softer than she wants, more affected than blasé. 

“Oh,” Nora says, “what...are you okay?”

The Witch nods. “Yeah. We actually talked and sorted things out, and...I don’t forgive him. Too much history. But I want to start over.”

Like she said earlier, she can’t hate him anymore. Because she can’t hate him and at the same time seek his approval and hate herself for wanting him to be proud anymore, it’s too much, too exhausting. 

Nora nods, an empathetic gleam in her eyes. “I get it. I do. My dad had to save the world just after I was born, so...he left, and mom told me he definitely  _ was  _ dead _.  _ Didn’t make me feel less abandoned, and even now…”

“You’re careful not to say or do the wrong thing because what if he leaves again,” Joss finishes, nodding in grim agreement. “But hey, we can’t change the past,”

“No, we can’t,” Nora says, a look crossing her face like she’s trying not to smirk, “and we shouldn’t. This is who we are,”

“ _ And _ ,” the Witch finishes, “I’m fairly rusty with conversational topics, but I’m sure that discussing child abandonment is not date talk,”

“It’s not.” the speedster says, too confidently. Joss quirks a brow, and she rushes into an explanation. “I sort of, uh, Googled it before we came.” 

“You looked up date talk?” 

The Weather Witch grins, unabashed. It’s sweet, cute, everything she associates with Nora West, CSI hero.

“What did you find out?”

“That none of the results worked for the person you are, the people  _ we  _ are,”

__ Joss feels warm, like the gold of Nora’s eyes have actually surrounded her in a halo.

“I think I can see that.” she agrees, and Nora looks like she’s experiencing the same thing she is.

Like the two of them are swept up in the aura of each other's feelings.

\----

They head back to Nora’s place after. Because it’s, like, the safest place Joss is in, every time loop. 

“So,” Joss says, “when you’re not saving the world, what do you do with your life?”

“Try to see if there’s anymore baddies to stop, run...train.” Nora smiles wistfully. “You would love being a speedster.”

Given what happened the last times Nora’s run with her, the Weather Witch highly doubts that. It must show.

“I mean it. It’s just you and the speedforce and everything but you is moving so slowly, you can practically see the air escape people’s lungs. It’s freeing, calming.”

“I think I’ll stick with controlling the weather,” Joss says dryly. 

“What’s that feeling like?” Nora sits down next to her, eyes curious.

“It makes me feel powerful, not like…” 

She struggles for words.

“Look, the Weather Witch? A persona. I guess. It’s like, I’ve buried all the things that made me Joslyn, and the things that made me Joss, and I can become a new person, outside of my family’s legacy. Which is ironic, because people far more easily associate the Weather Witch and Wizard than Mark Mardon and Joss Jackam. Well, they would, if I hadn’t gone and told the entire world that he was my father, which has led to a serial killer trying to off me which is fan-fucking-tastic, but...what’s done is done,”

“Wait,” Nora says, concerned, “ _ serial killer?” _

Joss winces. “We’re not going to pretend I never said that, are we?”

“No we are not,” 

“Cicada’s killed me nine times because the day keeps looping, and I do have a plan, but for now...can we just be?”

Nora chews at her lip.

“Fine,” she says in a not-fine tone. 

There’s silence for a minute and just when Joss is thinking she’s ruined everything, the speedster speaks up again.

“I also draw. And stuff,”

“You draw?” 

It’s honestly unexpected. Nora West, who’d spoken at her trial, who was one of the city’s top three heroes according to  _ Meta-zine,  _ who had a drink named after her at Jitters, liked to draw. 

Nora nods, helpfully explaining. “I like to think of it like holding a utensil to paper and using it to-”

“I know what drawing is, I just didn’t know you did,” Joss huffs, “can I see them?”

The speedster goes red, looking down. 

“Oh, it’s private,” the Witch realizes. “Don’t-”

“No! No, um, it’s just…they’re of you. Not all of them, some are of my parents and family friends and normal friends and-,”

“You drew pictures of me?”

“And painted. Oh God, I sound  _ sooo  _ creepy, I’m so sorry,” 

“I want to see them. If that’s okay,” Joss says, grinning. She’s flattered. The city’s newest hero spent time creating art of her.

“I’ll get the painting,” Nora says, “after that you can see if you want to look at the drawings or not.” 

She gets up and rushes to the bedroom, gold and purple lightning blinding the Witch, and then it happens again, the speedster sitting in her original position and passing the small canvas to her.

Her breath gets caught in her chest when she sees the painting. 

It was painted the first time she really spoke to XS. 

_ I will tell you everything, I’ll even show you where that woman took me. Just give me a chance. _

“Is this how you see me?” Joss asks. The painted her looks vulnerable and yet strong, the blue-black from the almost midnight sky reflecting off her hair, the lights off the destroyed radar shining off her face. 

“Yeah,” Nora says, just as quietly. “I mean, I don’t know- truth be told, I didn’t like you at first,”

“Kinda gathered that,”

“I still thought you were hot, but...not a good person. Then you took responsibility at your trial, and...and that was uncharted territory. I mean,  _ no  _ baddie who’s gone head to head with the Flash has openly declared themselves guilty, until you,”

“Well,” Joss says, playfully, “to be honest, I was never interested in him.  _ You _ , on the other hand…”

“Oh, you’re interested in me?”

“ _ Very  _ interested,”

Nora’s eyes gleam, and the Witch is only just able to put the painting on the table before Nora’s cupping her face and lightly kissing her. 

“Be honest, what do you think?” she asks, pulling back. 

“I love it, Nora, honestly. I think it’s amazing.” 

“Really?”

Joss rolls her eyes, unable to keep the grin off her face. “No, Nora, I’m definitely lying to you to make you feel better because that’s definitely who I am- _ ow!” _

Nora folds the arm she just used to swat at Joss. 

“Don’t be rude,” she chides, “that’s no way to start our relationship,” 

She sighs, before opening her arm again, wrapping it around the Witch’s shoulders tight. Joss sighs, feeling the speedster’s slightly accelerated heart and the slow rise and fall of Nora’s chest below her head, resting just under XS’s shoulder. 

“Look, I know I said I didn’t wanna talk about Cicada,” Joss says, “but I just want you to know, when I’m around you, I feel safer than I ever have. Even before I got killed,”

Nora hums. “I feel safe around you, too,” she whispers, like it’s the most private confession she’s ever kept secret. 

The Witch smiles, closing her eyes, feeling fully relaxed. 

“What's your plan?”

“Do we have to talk about him now?” she whines, her eyes fluttering open of her own accord. “Please? I just want to spend some time with the woman I want to be my girlfriend,”

“So do I,” Nora says, “but…”

“But nothing. This is my death day, okay?” 

“Please don’t do anything stupid,” her speedster pleads.

Joss scrunches her nose. “Define doing something stupid,” she says eventually because it’s a fair question. Nora groans. 

“ _ Joss, please,” _

_ \----- _

__ She throws on a pair of sweats because-- fuck it, if she’s gonna die, she is going to die  _ comfortably.  _

Her phone lights up, where it lies, still on the charger. 

_ Spencer Young _

_? why did you give me a Jitters gift card? _

Joss thinks about saying,  _ because I didn’t want to apologize to you.  _ Then she realizes that commenting something like that may put a halt to her change of attitude that she’s developed since getting killed.

_ Because I’ve been a bit shitty toward you and I want to change. _

There. She didn’t apologize, and she got her point across. Clearly, she’s winning life right now.

Save for the whole Cicada-murdering-her thing, but whatever. 

Spencer keeps on typing and deleting. Joss huffs and switches messages to Brie.

_ Know I’ve been talking to you like you’re shit...am changing.  _

Spencer finally replies.

_ Good to know. And that shittiness? Goes both ways. Hopefully the change does, too.  _

Joss grins as she replies with the first three words from her fellow criminals text before powering off her phone and starting to wash her hands. With lots of soap. 

As soon as her hands are dry- she uses this staff to conduct lightning, she’s not taking a risk and accidentally electrocuting herself, that’s probably what Nora was referring to as something stupid. 

And then she summons the staff, smiling vindictively as it flies across the room to her, and she closes her fingers around it. 

_ Perfect.  _ She focuses on her dad’s voice in her head, talking her through freezing the soap, and faster than before, it does. 

Joss smiles, her heartbeat accelerating as it does whenever she does a new thing with her weather staff and pulls it off. Now all she has to do is wait for the son of a bitch. 

She sighs, grabbing her phone and setting an alarm, before opening her door wide. 

God, this is taking  _ so  _ long. She contemplates calling Nora, then decides against it. If he does manage to kill her, she doesn’t want the speedster hearing it. If Joss had to choose between seeing or hearing a person she knows dying, she will always pick seeing because hearing it is so much worse because your brain tries to put images to sounds and sometimes, what your brain pictures can be worse than anything you thought you could come up with. 

So. She was bored. And a bored Joss is not a happy Joss. 

\----

She wishes she was still bored a moment later when Cicada drags his dagger up the stairs, no doubt noticing her open door, as a challenge. 

Joss uses her staff to raise the “hailstones”, gritting her teeth. She’s so ready for this to be  _ done.  _

He uses his dagger to push the door open a little more, and she rolls her eyes. God, could he be anymore of a cliche? He stares her down as she steps forwards, little icy balls of soap moving with her. As soon as he raises his dagger, she whips her staff forward and one of the stones flies into his chest, knocking him back. His eyes blaze with fury when he looks up. 

She forces her hand not to shake around the iron. 

“Got plenty more of those, dickbag,” she spits out. He struggles to his feet, and throws the dagger at her head. She ducks, swearing violently as one of the hailstones falls, too. That was her best one, too. 

Before he can summon his dagger back, she sends a hailstone flying into his chest and then into his stomach. 

“Who sent you?”

“No one,” he growls, eyes flashing. She laughs. 

“Oh,  _ please,  _ I’m a natural born liar, which means I can smell your pathetic attempt at lying a mile away,” she tilts her head, a hail stone moving with her. “Shall I count to 3?”

He thrusts his arm out, and she quickly sends a stone into the limb. 

“This is my turf,” Joss says, faux sweetly. “So you’re gonna have to tell me who sent you,”

The dagger makes a wrenching noise as it comes free from the wall, and she side steps in time so it doesn’t lodge in her back. He closes his hand around the dagger, but she notices it’s shaking. She has him. Even with one hailstone left.

“Who sent you,”

He gives her a poisonous look, one she readily returns, and throws the dagger. She ducks but the dagger cuts part of her sleeve, and then it comes back. Panicked, she uses the last hail stone to knock it off course. The dagger slightly bends, and she grins excitedly as he screams in frustration. 

It feels good, nearly breaking the weapon that’s been used to murder her several times. Joss turns triumphantly to him, noticing his changed stature. He’s pale, sweating and flinching in pain every so often. She smiles, coldly, shifting her weight. 

“Last chance. Tell me who sent you,” she says, despite the fact that she has no more hailstones. 

“She-“ he croaks, before slumping back. Joss resists the urge to scream in frustration, and instead focus on the positives. 

She has a lot more to go on now, after all. Frowning softly, she grabs her phone and selects a familiar number from her contacts. 

“What would you say if I had a wanted criminal unconscious on my floor?”

——

Cicada gets rushed to jail in a vision of purple and gold lightning. 

“So,” Nora says, arriving back. She still has her purple and white super suit on, but she’s lost the mask. “Why was Cicada unconscious on your floor?”

“I didn’t kill him,”

XS arches a brow. 

“Self defense, he was trying to kill me,” Joss sighs. “But for once he didn’t succeed,”

“Well,” her speedster relents. “I’m glad he didn’t succeed,” she glances the Witch over. “He didn’t hurt you, did he?”

“No. Not for a lack of trying,” she grins. “What can I say? I’m good,”

“The best,” Nora agrees dryly. “The city’s hero, I’d say”

“Mm, I wouldn’t go that far. But tell the Jitters staff that I was the one to stop Cicada, so if they wanna make a drink and name it after me...”

Her speedster rolls her eyes, affectionately. “Yeah, okay, Joss,”

She steps forwards, grabbing the Witch’s hands. “I’m really, really happy you’re okay,” she whispers. 

The Weather Witch swallows as she remembers the last time XS had talked to her wearing these gloves. 

_ Will you please tell them!? Sorry, I don’t trust criminals.  _

But…

But that’s not who they are today and Nora had given her a chance and she had given Nora a chance and being with Nora makes her feel safe and vulnerable at the same time. 

“I’m really, really happy I’m okay, too,” Joss says, curling her fingers up through Nora’s. 

The speedster smiles, her eyes crinkling at the corners. 

“Will I see you tomorrow?” she asks. 

“Hopefully. Don’t jinx it, though,” 

She looks around the room and sighs. “God. I’m gonna have to pay for repairs, aren’t I?”

“You could just get insurance. I mean, meta crimes are a thing now. Heaps of people get it,” Nora nods toward the broken window that, unbeknownst to her, her own father had incidentally broken. “If a meta broke that, you could also fix that,”

Joss’s mouth falls open. “ _ There was a solution the whole time!?” _

Her speedster laughs before glancing down at the Witch’s mouth when a beep comes. 

“Nora? Nora? Axel Walker’s holding Jitters hostage, and he’s got bombs. We need you,” Barry’s voice crackles. 

“I have to go,” Nora says, regretfully. “Will you be okay?”

“Go save the day,” the Weather Witch says, “I’ll be fine. After all, Cicada’s in jail, right?”

“Talk soon,” XS promises, squeezing Joss’s fingers one last time before rushing out of the room in a final burst of purple. 

——-

There’s one last thing Joss has to do. Well, okay, she doesn’t have to. But she wants to. Maybe to prove that everything today was legitimate. She sighs,before sitting on her bed and holding her phone. This could go a  _ myriad  _ of bad ways, but she doesn’t care. 

She selects her dad’s contact, and edits the name so it doesn’t have any punctuation at the end. 

And then she calls him. 

“Joss?” he asks, as surprised as he was in the loop where she picked up his call. 

“Hey,” she says, “um. I just wanted to let you know that, uh, I tried hail. And it worked. Like really well. He’s in jail. Or maybe I put him in the hospital,”

“Well,” Mark sounds...amused? Proud? A mix of the two? “I can’t say I’m too upset. Not upset at all, really. Though maybe you went too overkill, next time, just torture them to the brink,”

“When someone’s killed you nine times, would you say putting them in the hospital’s overkill?”

“Good point,” he sighs. “Does this mean no more dying?”

“Well, I hope so,” she frowns. “Why do you sound upset?”

“It’s not because of the change in the day,” he assures her. “It’s just...well, Cicada killing you was the only reason you needed my help. And now that’s done, what’re we…”

“Doing,” she finishes. “I don’t know. I don’t want to know, but dad. I’m not just gonna walk off and abandon you,”

She can sort of hear him wince and smiles. Look, she might have changed, but she doubts she’ll ever lose the petty vindictiveness that looks so good on her. 

“Maybe, once this whole thing is over, we could go...I mean, you said you’d teach me anything I wanted to know about the weather, right? We could do training, like, once a week? Or something,”

“Sure,” he agrees, sounding slightly relieved. “And you know, if you ever want to do anything else…”

“I’ll let you know,” she says eventually. “I  _ will _ , but…”

“You need time, I get it. And uh, I don’t wanna pressure you or anything but I just want you to know, that I lost Clyde and I’m really glad I didn’t lose you, too,”

Joss licks her lips. “Me, too,” 

She sighs, “I’m wiped. Apparently dying nine times makes you really exhausted. Thanks for teaching me how to make hail. Night, dad,”

“Night Joss,” he says, nervous. She smiles a little, hanging up. That went surprisingly well. And now that she may get a tomorrow, things are looking up. Her phone lights up again. 

_ Nora: _

_ Have a good night. Can we meet tomorrow, now that you may have one? x  _

Joss bites her lip and responds,  _ definitely.  _

Then she turns off her phone and flips it face down and collapses back onto her bed. 

Her exhaustion is greater than she thought, and she has a hard time keeping her eyes open.  _ But she doesn’t need to,  _ she reminds herself,  _ because you’re not in danger anymore.  _

And with her conscience’s permission, her eyes flutter closed. 

——

She opens her eyes, feeling a hazy sensation go over her, as well as a sinking dread. 

Just like the third loop, someone’s got their hands around her throat, and is squeezing their thumbs into the delicate bones in her necks. 

And Joss would be willing to bet anything that her murderer was the  _ she  _ Cicada talked about. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed this chapter! Leave a comment with what you think. 
> 
> Just a heads up- chapter 11 may be a bit delayed, as next week, I have a uni course that will limit my writing. I'm going to try my hardest to get it to you on time, but it may not happen, sorry.


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